Metru Uni
by A Girl Named Ed
Summary: Heavy AU. Vakama is a student at Mata Nui College in the city of Metru Nui. It turns out he's destined to lead a band of elemental heroes, or 'Toa,' and save the heart of the city from darkness. Who knew? Rated for swearing.
1. Meet

**Ed's back with a new story! Don't worry, PB86 and I are still working on The Rahi Warrior, it's just coming a little slower than hoped. (See my profile for details.)  
Summary: Vakama is a new student at Mata Nui College in the city of Metru Nui. It turns out he's destined to lead a band of elemental heroes, or 'Toa,' in a quest to save the heart of the city from darkness. Who knew?  
Warnings: AU (duh), slight OOC sometimes, human!Bionicle, some swearing, fluff, and maybe (very very very very very) mild slash later on. Not sure yet. Also, I'm trying something new with this story that I got from Derek Landy (author of the Skulduggery Pleasant series): writing whatever scene I feel like writing whenever I feel like writing it. (E.g. today I wrote the scene where Sidorak meets a Visorak for the first time.) Hopefully, this will keep me interested in the story without it going crazy.  
Another thing: in a couple of months (February? March?) I'll also be posting my attempts at a 100-theme challenge, which will all be oneshots relating to this. Wish me luck.  
For character designs, see my deviantart page (which you can access from my profile).  
I guess that's all. Please enjoy Metru Uni! Please R&R!**

Chapter 1: Meet

Vakama Pyre stuck his key card into the slot to open the door. The red light flashed once, and he frowned. He tried again, and the door remained locked. "Come on," he muttered, swiping it through a third time. Finally, it flashed green, and he swung the door open to see his dorm room.

After a week of orientation, he was finally starting to get used to his campus. He was taking a General Arts certificate program at Mata Nui College in the city of Metru Nui, and he now knew how to get to all of his classes, plus the library, the cafeteria, the residence, and a few other places. In fact, he was really starting to get used to living there.

But he was still totally unprepared to see a young black man sitting at the kitchen table, reading a thick looking book and eating a banana.

The redhead stared at him. He'd never seen him before. Finally, he found his voice. "H-hey, what are you doing here? How did you get in?"

The other looked up. "Oh, hi there. You must be Vakama. I'm Whenua, Whenua Quake. I guess we're roomies!" Whenua's voice was deep and booming, but friendly enough. He stood up and pumped Vakama's arm. "Good to meet you!"

When he finally let go of Vakama's (now slightly crushed) hand, Vakama said, "Um, likewise. If you don't mind my asking, why didn't you do the orientation week?"

He laughed. "I'm a 'mature student,'" he explained. "This is all old hat to me. Plus my dad works here at the library, so I'm fairly used to the campus."

"Oh," Vakama replied quietly. "I see." He inspected his roommate. Whenua was taller than him, but then a lot of people were. He had his straight black hair in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck, bright green eyes, and lots and lots of muscles.

"Something wrong?"

"Uh, n-no," he stammered. "I was just thinking it would be nice to actually know someone here, that's all." It was true. He missed his home in Ta-Metru, the section of Metru Nui he'd been born and raised in. The college was too...cold. Its proximity to Ko-Metru, a renowned skiing area, was probably the cause.

Suddenly he thought of something. "What's your program?" Vakama asked. The college had never sent him the information on his roommate, mostly because they'd changed his room at the last minute, so he knew nothing about Whenua.

The answer surprised him. "Library and Information Technician," he declared proudly.

Vakama couldn't help but stare. "You're kidding."

"Nope. I want to be a librarian, probably in an elementary school. You look surprised."

"Sorry, it's just...you don't look like the type who'd go for that kind of thing. I mean, you're so big and buff and all...I thought you'd be doing something like basketball or something."

"You kidding? I hate organized sports! Chess and bodybuilding are more my speed. Besides, I don't think 'basketball' is an actual college course."

Vakama shifted and pushed his rectangular glasses up the bridge of his nose. He avoided making eye contact and said, "So now what?"

"I dunno...hey, I hear they have free pizza downstairs! Let's go get some!" Whenua practically dragged the shorter one out of the room and to the elevators. Vakama had honestly planned on spending his night the same way he'd spent the last five in dorm: surfing the internet, watching junk TV, and eating cinnamon hearts. By himself. He was probably the least social person he knew. A couple of people had asked him to hang out during orientation, but he'd politely refused, saying he was busy. Well, he was busy. Sort of. If doing nothing was considered 'busy.'

Whenua didn't talk much on the way down. Vakama decided he liked that about him.

Their room was on the top floor, so they picked up a few people on the way. One was a chatty boy who looked about Vakama's age, with brown hair that was streaked green. He got on with a quiet but annoyed-looking blonde with startling blue eyes that gave everyone an icy glare. A few floors later, another young man got on. He seemed to be somewhere between Whenua and Vakama in terms of age, and he was tanned with brown hair and eyes. He didn't talk much except for a brief greeting. Finally, on the seventh floor, a girl got on. She was very pretty, with light brown hair tied in a ponytail with a blue scrunchie. She smiled at Vakama when she got on, and he blushed. "Hi," she said.

When he finally got his tongue unstuck from the roof of his mouth, he smiled back. "H-hello," he mumbled.

"Hey, cutie," the chatty guy said happily. "What's your name?"

"Nokama. Yours?" Nokama. It had to be the prettiest name Vakama had ever heard.

"I'm Matau! Chuckles here is my roommate, Nuju." Nuju nodded once at them, and that was all the indication he gave that they existed.

"Onewa," said the tanned man. "I'm just here for the pizza."

Whenua grinned. "I'm Whenua. This here is my roomie, Vakama." Vakama had lost his voice again. He got shy around so many people, but he did manage a small wave and a "Nice to meet you all."

By this time, they'd reached the lobby. It was completely empty. "Okay, this is weird," Matau said, looking around. "Where is everyone?"

A passing RezLife official overheard him. "Sorry, guys. The pizza's all gone." As he walked off, he muttered, "Never underestimate the power of a horde of hungry college students..."

"Well that's just great," Onewa grumbled. "Now where am I going to get free food?"

Matau stuck out his tongue. "Stingy!"

"Why, you...!"

"Oh, knock it off," said Nokama, stepping between the two. "There's a Pizza Hut next door. Why don't we go there?"

Vakama paled. "W-we?"

"Sure! We can all go together!"

One by one, everyone agreed. When everyone looked at Vakama expectantly, he hesitated. Then Whenua slung an arm around his shoulders and proclaimed that "Vak would love to come!"

Vakama stared at him in shock. _So I get __no__ say in the matter? And since when do you call me Vak?_

"Remember what you said earlier?" Whenua whispered in his ear. "About having people you know here? This is your chance, Vakama. Take it, and run with it. Don't be shy."

Eventually, despite the fact that Whenua's advice sounded oddly like something Obi-Wan Kenobi would say, Vakama agreed shyly. He sort of did want to get to know everyone better, especially Nokama. And for some reason, even though they'd just met, he felt like he already knew them. He felt almost...comfortable around them, despite his initial shyness.

Who knew, maybe his little brother Tahu was right. Maybe it was good to get out of your room every now and then.

* * *

Two pairs of eyes were watching on the security cameras as the group left. An old man turned to his younger assistant. "The six are together, Lhikan. You know what to do."

Lhikan nodded and grabbed his bag. "Right. See you soon, Dume."

* * *

They weren't the only ones watching. A pair of glowing red eyes watched in a mirror as they left. He turned to his minion. "The six are together. You know what to do."

The shadow being bowed. "Yes, right away, Master."


	2. Transform

**(Oops! A/N got deleted!)  
I'm back! It's back! And apparently it has 2 readers! Woo!  
Moving on...I'm only going to be posting once a week so I can keep up some semblance of a steady pace while still working on this and other projects. Also, please keep in mind that this is AU, so don't get mad for the fact that things don't happen in canon order.  
Please review! Constructive critisism is always appreciated. And I only own Bhek (but I hate him T.T).  
See you all next week!**

Chapter 2: Transform

Vakama found himself seated at a round table with the other five, with Whenua to his left and Nokama to his right. Matau was on Nokama's other side, flirting with her, with Nuju next to Whenua and Onewa directly across from Vakama. When Vakama asked Nokama if she didn't feel awkward being the only girl, she admitted that she did wish her roommate was there.

"Who's your roommate?" Matau asked.

"Her name's Kiina. She's an international student from somewhere called Bara Magna. She wasn't feeling well tonight, so she decided to stay in."

Onewa snorted. "Sounds better than my roommate. Sidorak or something. I just met him today and he's a huge wimp. Didn't want to tear himself away from his video games long enough to come outside." Vakama decided that he and Sidorak might get along well. (A/N: LIES!)

A tall young man with golden hair who looked like he'd just stepped out of an episode of 'Beachcombers' walked over. "Hello, my name is Lhikan and I'll be your server tonight! Can I get you started with anything?"

Before Vakama could politely ask for a glass of water, Nokama piped up. "Hey, I know you! I saw you at orientation."

Lhikan grinned. "Probably. I sort of work at the rez over at MNC. But I can't seem to remember your name, Miss...?" He left it hanging for her to fill in her name. _Smooth,_ Vakama thought. _This guy is smooth_.

"Rayne. Nokama Rayne."

"Bond. James Bond," Matau said in a mock deep voice. Everyone snickered until Nokama glared at them.

"Well, it's good to meet you, Nokama. But I'm really here to ask if you want anything to drink."

Everyone gave him their orders and Lhikan trotted off to the kitchen to fill them. Nokama turned to the rest of them. "So what program is everyone in?"

"Library," Whenua piped up.

"Astronomy," Nuju said quietly.

"Aviation Operations!" That came from Matau. "I need a job to fund my hobby."

"What's that?" Nokama asked.

"Racing go-karts!" That didn't surprise Vakama in the least. Matau certainly seemed like the 'raring to go' type.

"I'm in Residential Construction," Onewa said. Vakama noticed that he was doodling something on his napkin, and wondered if it was blueprints.

"ECE," Nokama said. Everyone looked at her blankly until she sighed and translated, "Early Childhood Education." She turned to Vakama. "What about you?"

"Uh...G-General Arts," he stuttered. He hated being in the spotlight. "I don't know what I want to do, so I took it instead of another year of high school."

Nokama smiled. "That's good. You can get a good foundation with a General Arts." Vakama nodded with a small smile.

"Hey, Matau, I gotta say, I love your hair," Whenua said. Vakama sent him a silent thanks for getting the attention off of him. Sure, making friends was great, but...for someone as naturally shy as Vakama, it was awkward. There was a reason why he consistently failed drama class all through school.

"Thanks," the chatty boy grinned. "I wanted to dye it all green, but my mom wouldn't let me."

Lhikan came back with their drinks. "Hey, can I ask you guys something?" he asked quietly.

"You just did," Onewa pointed out.

"Okay, you've got me there. But seriously, you haven't been approached by any...I dunno, shady-looking dudes, have you?"

They all looked at each other and shrugged. "No," Whenua said. "Why?"

"Oh, uh, no reason. So, you guys ready to order?"

* * *

Elsewhere, a cheesy Disney tune was playing. A tall, thin man with greasy hair and dark glasses blushed and took out his phone. "Master, I'm on a busy street and people are staring," he complained.

"Then change your ringtone. Are you there yet?"

"A-almost, Master."

"Well hurry up! Lhikan's already made contact!"

"H-he had closer access! I had to walk all the way from—"

"Bhek," the sinister voice growled, "I don't want excuses. I want results!"

"Y-yes Master! Sorry, Master! I'll call when I get there, Sir!" The line went dead, and the man called Bhek shoved the phone back in his pocket and took off at a run, ignoring the indignant shouts from people he pushed past. If only Master Teridax had designed him with some wings...!

* * *

"Ah, Pizza Hut," Onewa said fondly, patting his takeout box. "I love you."

"Okay, I've divided the bill up into six separate sections, so I think these are the right ones," Lhikan muttered, handing each of them a slip of paper. Vakama smiled. Maybe Pizza Hut could fit his budget after all. "Oh, right," Lhikan added, digging into his apron pocket. "And candies."

"Woo! Candies!" Matau grinned. "Score!"

Lhikan placed one candy in front of each of them. Matau tore into his immediately, the others waiting until they'd finished paying (except Nuju, who ignored his). Vakama sucked on his. Cinnamon. He was about to comment when he noticed the logo on the wrapper. It was a silver circle flanked by two smaller circles and two wavy lines that looked like the number 3. It looked strangely familiar. Then he noticed something else. Each of the other's wrappers were a different colour. His was red, Nokama's was blue, Matau's was green, Onewa's was brown, Nuju's was white, and Whenua's was black. He assumed that meant they all had different flavours, so he asked Whenua what his tasted like.

"Sour lemon. You wouldn't expect that from a black candy in a black wrapper."

"Mine's cinnamon...I love cinnamon."

"I have green apple!" Onewa contributed.

"Mine's watermelon," Nokama added.

"Caramel!" That was Matau.

Everyone looked at Nuju expectantly, who sighed and finally unwrapped and ate his. After a moment, he simply said, "Mint."

Watching them from the cash register, Lhikan sighed in relief. Now, hopefully, their powers would awaken quickly, before—

There was a crash as a large black object came flying through the window. Everyone screamed and ducked. Lhikan stood up with a "Damn."

The figure that had come in so excitingly straightened. He was tall and thin, with hollow cheeks, pale skin, greasy hair, sunglasses, and dark clothes that covered almost every inch of skin. He turned to Vakama's table. "So, you're the Toa Metru," he sneered. "My name is Bhek, but you may call me your doom!"

Vakama fell out of his chair with a clatter. He was in full panic mode now. _Wh-what the hell is going on? What's a Toa Metru? Why does this guy want to kill us? _He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. _So this is it, _he thought, slightly numbly. _We're going to die._

"Vakama! Everyone, get out, now!"

Vakama opened his eyes to see Lhikan in front of them, his arms spread protectively and a glowing energy shield blocking Bhek from reaching them. None of this made any sense to Vakama, but he decided to run now and ask questions later. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea, and they tore out of Pizza Hut like a bat out of Hell.

When they'd reached the corner, they stopped, panting. "Wh-what was that?" Onewa gasped, bending over, holding the stitch in his side.

"I don't know," Vakama replied once he'd caught his breath, "but it was obviously after us. Any idea what a Toa Metru is?"

"No," Nokama said, shaking her head. "It sounds strangely familiar, but I've never—Vakama, what's wrong?"

Vakama suddenly felt like his whole body was on fire. His heart was beating super fast and he let out a yell. Then it stopped, as suddenly as it began. Panting, he straightened. "That was weird," he muttered. Then he looked down at himself.

Vakama screamed.

He didn't look like himself at all. He was taller and more muscular, with a weird long-sleeved red tunic replacing his jeans and sweater. He had old-fashioned dark red pants tucked into the swords-and-sorcery style reddish leather boots that had replaced his beat-up sneakers, and the shirt under his tunic was the same dark red.

Vakama couldn't think of anything to say. He looked up and saw that everyone else had gone through similar transformations. They were wearing the same kinds of clothes that he was, but they were in different colours. Matau's were green, Whenua had black and grey, Onewa was wearing brown, and Nuju wore white and silver. Nokama had the same style of clothes in blue, but the tunic was shorter and she had tights instead of pants. Their hair and eyes had changed, too. Nokama's ponytail was blue, and her eyes orange. Matau's hair was now completely green, and for some reason his eyes were red. Onewa's hair stayed brown, but his eyes were blue now, a darker shade than Nuju's, which had stayed the same, but now his hair was white. Nuju also had a white eyepatch over his left eye. Vakama caught his reflection in a puddle on the ground, and saw that his glasses were gone, his eyes were yellow, and his hair was a brighter red than usual. Whenua's hair and eyes hadn't changed at all.

Finally, Onewa voiced the thoughts that were swirling in everyone's heads. "What the hell is going on here?"

"My mom's going to kill-murder me!" Matau yelped when he saw his hair.

"Not if that Blek guy gets us first!" Whenua yelled, pointing.

Bhek was flying directly at them. Everyone ran out of the way as he hit the pavement and came up snarling. "My name is Bhek, dumbass, _Bhek_!"

"Bhek!" Everyone turned to see Lhikan, running towards them. But...he looked different too. He was wearing a sort of tunic outfit too, but it was red and gold instead of different shades of the same colour. "Sorry I couldn't hold him off too long," he apologized, holding a hand palm out towards Bhek. "Bhek, Toa don't kill. Go home."

Bhek snarled. "Never! Master told me to dispose of them, and dispose I will!"

"Master who? Who are you working for?"

With another snarl, Bhek launched himself directly at Vakama, who screamed and raised his hands in defence.

Suddenly, there was another scream, and Vakama opened his eyes to see that Bhek was on fire. _How did that happen?_ Vakama thought. Everyone seemed to be looking at him, and he felt a tingling sensation in his hands. He looked down at them and saw they were on fire, but they didn't hurt or burn. "What the hell? Crap, I'm on fire!"

The fire now out, Bhek growled and crouched, turning to try and keep an eye on everyone at the same time. Lhikan gestured at everyone. "Don't just stand there, guys! We can take him if we work together!"

Suddenly a tornado appeared around Bhek, whirling him around and then depositing him headfirst in a nearby tree. Matau had his hands out and a bewildered look on his face. "How did you do that?" Onewa asked.

Matau shook his head. "I...I don't know. I just felt-thought that I could, and suddenly there was this tornado-wind..."

Bhek untangled himself from the treetop and dropped to the ground with a groan. But when he went to take a step towards them, he found his feet frozen to the ground. He looked at the group, and saw that it was Nuju's turn to be wearing the bewildered face. Then a violent earthquake directly under him toppled him to the ground, and Whenua gasped and hastily lowered his hands.

By this time, a crowd was starting to gather. Onewa frowned. _Why do people always flock to scenes that they really should be avoiding?_ He glared at Bhek, needing somewhere to focus his annoyance. Pebbles started pelting their now-slightly-bedraggled-looking attacker, and Onewa took an involuntary step back. _Did...did I do that?_

The ice shattered, and Bhek staggered to his feet, glaring at all of them. "F...fine. You win today, _Toa_." He spat 'Toa' as though it were poison. "But next time, I'll be better prepared, and—"

"You talk too much," Nokama said, gesturing. A raincloud appeared over his head, drenching him as he ran off and following him all the way home. She blinked a few times, as though coming out of a trance, and muttered, "What was that?" before looking at Lhikan. "What did you do?"

"Er...this is a really bad place to discuss it," Lhikan sighed, gesturing to the huge crowd. They were abuzz about what had just happened. The waiter started ushering the six towards the Mata Nui College campus. "Trust me, it's going to be hard enough to keep this off the Internet without having the entire explanation up there."

"But—what—who—how—" Vakama was having trouble forming a coherent sentence. "Ch-change me back!"

"In a minute. First, I have someone I need to introduce you to."

"Who's that?"

"My boss. His name is Turaga Dume."


	3. Explain

**Ta-daaaaa! Chapter 3!  
I need a life. Badly. Where was I when they were handing those out?  
Um, no flames about how I transferred the Matoran culture to our world. It just seemed to work. Also, I would like to humbly apologise to the Roman god of the Underworld, Pluto, for making a mockery of the planet named for him. Please don't kill me.  
Oh geez, Onewa XD I love you.  
Thanks for reading! Please review. Constructive critisism is always appreciated.  
*I only own Bhek but not for long~***

Chapter 3: Explain

Bhek knelt before his master. "I-I'm sorry, Master. I have failed you."

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you," growled the ominous voice.

"B-because..." He hung his head. "I don't have one, Master."

The being chuckled. "You are honest and brave, Bhek. I'll almost regret your destruction."

"That's all I could ever ask for, Master."

Then the master started laughing and the servant started screaming.

* * *

Lhikan herded the group into the small security room. "Sorry it's such a tight fit. This room wasn't meant for so many people."

There was a short old man with salt-and-pepper hair watching a million TV screens at once. He was wearing a red and black windbreaker with the word 'SECURITY' printed in white on the back in bold capitals. He turned to face them. "The Toa Metru," he said with a satisfied smile. "We've been waiting for you. My name is Dume."

"Okay, listen, you," Onewa snapped, striding up to him and jabbing a finger in his face. "I have questions and I want them answered _now_!"

"Patience, young Toa. I'll see what I can do."

"Again with the Toa! What the hell is a Toa?"

Dume gestured to all of them. "You are, now. Have you heard of Mata Nui?"

"Sure," Matau said. "It's a college-school."

"Not quite," Lhikan said. "The school was named after the Great Spirit Mata Nui."

"Oh! That's the god for this one religion, what was it called..." Nokama muttered. "I know we covered this in World Religion last year..."

"It's the religion with no name, at least to most of the world," Dume said. "To those who practise it, however, it is known as 'Matoran.'"

"Wait, why is the school named after a god?" Whenua asked sceptically. "I've heard of schools named after saints and stuff, but as far as I know, there's never been a 'Bhudda High' or 'Zeus College.'"

Dume shrugged. "That's not important. Take it up with the founder of the school. The more important question, the one I'm sure is burning in all of your minds right now, is what Mata Nui has to do with Toa and, even more importantly, you." Each of them nodded. "A Toa is a hero who serves the Great Spirit and honours his three virtues of Unity, Duty, and Destiny." As he said each virtue, Vakama felt a shudder run through him. This all sounded so familiar...why was that? Dume turned to each of them in turn. "Nokama, Toa Metru of Water. Nuju, Toa Metru of Ice. Whenua, Toa Metru of Earth. Onewa, Toa Metru of Stone. Matau, Toa Metru of Air." A small smile played on his lips as he turned to the last Toa. "And Vakama, Toa Metru of Fire. It is your destiny, as a group, to overcome evil and save the heart of Metru Nui."

Vakama brushed his fingers against his forehead. This whole thing was starting to give him a headache. "Th-the heart of the city? I don't know what you—"

Something stabbed through his head and he let out a cry. Everything went white, and all he could see for miles was nothingness. Then suddenly in front of him appeared what seemed to be the skyline of Metru Nui. But it was different, somehow, darker, devastated. Vakama's heart thumped out of his chest and into his throat as he tried to run towards the city, but he was running in place, going nowhere. With a jolt, he realized that he recognised this from the dream he'd been having ever since he arrived at the college a week ago, but then something occurred that had never happened before.

Vines snaked around him and lifted him into the air. Then six objects that looked suspiciously like Frisbees flew past him. Light danced from them, destroying the vines and causing Vakama to fall on his head. Their job done, the discs joined together into one in a flash of light and...

"Vakama? Vakama!" That was Nokama's voice; she was shaking him a little. He shook his head, glazed yellow eyes becoming focussed again. "What happened?"

"I-I don't know. One minute I was here, the next..." He described what he'd seen. "And that's not all. For the past week, I've been having the same dream every night, and it's exactly the same as this...whatever it was. Except it always stopped before the vines."

Dume frowned. Had this incarnation also been blessed with the visions the other had had? "The city destroyed...vines...this can only mean the return of the Morbuzakh!"

"Return of the what-now?" Matau asked.

"The Morbuzakh vines once ravaged Metru Nui's, um, sister city," Lhikan said. He scratched the back of his head. "Okay, how best to explain this...? See, there's more than one Metru Nui. There are about...six or seven, each in its own respective universe."

Vakama couldn't help but stare in disbelief and scepticism. "You've been watching too much _Star Trek_."

"No, really. In different universes, the different incarnations of Metru Nui are on different planets. In one universe, it's on Pluto."

"That's not really a planet," Nuju couldn't help but interject.

"Not in our universe. In that universe, Pluto revolves around the North Star and is inhabited entirely by highly intelligent canines. Anyway, in the universe that we need to be concerned about, Metru Nui is on a planet called Spherus Magna. It used to be on Aqua Magna, but that's another story." Vakama was curious as to how a city moved from one planet to another, but he kept quiet. "On Spherus Magna, people are...well, biomechanical robots."

Matau burst out laughing. "Robots? No more sugar-snacks before bedtime for you, firespitter!"

Vakama blinked. "Firespitter? And what's with the random joining of words all of a sudden, Matau?"

The Toa of Air stopped laughing abruptly. "I...I don't know. Firespitter just popped into my head, and I never spot-noticed the word-joining before...augh! I did it again!"

"That's an Air Toa trait; you get used to it," Lhikan shrugged, waving it away. "And it's true. They really are biomechanical beings. The original Toa Metru appeared there."

"Original?" Whenua asked.

"Yes. Almost everything that's ever happened in this Metru Nui has already happened there. That's why things probably seem really familiar to you, because it's already happened." He nodded at Vakama. "What you saw in your vision was probably the Morbuzakh vines, which attacked Spherus Magna's Metru Nui. They exist simply to destroy."

"If the Morbuzakh vines are returning, then they must be stopped!" Dume declared. "Only the power of the six Great Disks, wielded by the Toa Metru, could defeat them the first time. You must find them!"

"Great Disks? Must? We? Whoa, whoa, whoa," Onewa interjected. "I don't 'must' do anything, and especially not as a 'we.'"

"That doesn't even make any sense," Lhikan retorted, rolling his eyes.

"Shut up!" snapped Onewa. "Whatever it is we're supposed to be doing, I'm not getting involved. My parents aren't paying this place to make me save the world or whatever."

"But Onewa," Nokama protested.

He looked at her with surprise. "Don't tell me you actually want to go along with what they're saying?"

"Onewa, listen. I think...we've been brought together for a reason. I'm a big believer in fate, and, well, what they're saying...it makes sense. Doesn't it just feel right?"

Onewa was about to retort, but something stopped him. She was right; it did feel like everything they were saying was true, like it really was meant to be. _But that doesn't mean I'm going to make it easy on them,_ he thought. "Whatever," he muttered.

Lhikan laid a hand on Onewa's shoulder. "Look, I know what it's like. It was really weird and kinda scary for me when I first became a Toa, too. But Dume and I will be here to guide you through it, to help you hone your powers."

"What about that Bhek guy?" Vakama asked.

Lhikan tensed. "Ah. Yes, we're not entirely sure who he's working for, but whoever it is, he or she doesn't want you guys around. If you don't learn how to properly control your powers, you'll never be able to stay safe. Trust me, those who control the shadows are bad news."

"So basically, it's do or die," Whenua summed up.

"Yeah, that's the gist of it. Well, what do you say?"

They looked at each other, some with fear, some with confidence or cockiness, but they all seemed to come to the same decision. Vakama turned to Dume. "So where do we start?"


	4. Discover

**And here we have Chapter 4. Nidhiki's in it! Yay! I liked him before he darksided.  
Just a note: according to my stats page, Metru Uni has the most visitors of all my stories, even my Harvest Moon fic 7 Days, which had the top number of visitors for the longest time. (It does have significantly lower reviews, faves, and alerts, but since one of the things I'm going by for deciding to do a sequel is visitors, this is awesome!) I'd like to thank you all sincerely for 85 visitors and 147 hits!  
Moving on, this is the last update of January, so happy February and I'll see you next week! Oh, and one more thing: the first chapter of the Metru Uni manga I'm doing has been posted if you're interested. You can access it from my homepage link on my profile.  
That's all, folks! Please review, constructive critisism is always appreciated. Till next time!  
*I don't own anything anymore because Bhek is dead.*  
**

Chapter 4: Discover

Lhikan watched the new Toa leave the security office, back in their 'regular' forms and slightly dazed. "Do you really think it's a good idea to let them be on their own right now?" he asked Dume.

"They will be fine. If things play out the same way they did the first time, it should be alright."

The younger man looked at his mentor. Unlike him, Dume had almost all of his memories from his time on the original Metru Nui, and every other Metru Nui that had gone before. He said that someone named 'Makuta Teridax' was responsible for everything, but they had no way of knowing if it was so in their universe, since in the aforementioned Pluto-verse, it was actually some guy named Artakha who was the evil mastermind. Until whomever it was tipped their hand, they were in the proverbial dark.

"Yeah, well, if everything's so 'fine,'" he muttered, "then why do I get the feeling we've forgotten to tell them something important?"

* * *

"Aw, come on, Vakama, let me in!"

Vakama had shoved his chair under his doorknob and was sitting on his bed, ignoring Whenua on the other side of the door, pulling at his hair and repeatedly cleaning and re-cleaning his glasses. "Whenua, I need to be alone to think for a few minutes!"

"Oh, for...all right, fine. Have it your way. But just know that you're not the only one going through this, Vak." Whenua sounded annoyed and hurt, and Vakama felt bad for that, but he couldn't think when he was around other people. He forced himself to calm down, taking deep, relaxing breaths.

Suddenly, a word floated into his mind: _Kanohi_. Vakama blinked. _Kanohi? What does that mean? Does it have something to do with Toa?_ Images exploded in his mind: plans for a metal mask, rows upon rows of similar metal masks, and finally, a tall, red robot, whose mask was glowing, slowly turning invisible...

When he snapped out of it, he was panting with fear. _Why? Why is this happening to me? Why can I see these things, and what do they mean?_

Then he looked down at himself, and screamed again for the second time that day.

* * *

Whenua's room was nice and dark, and that was how he liked it. He couldn't sleep unless the room was completely dark and silent. Unlike Vakama, he'd gone to bed early instead of trying to contemplate the events of the day, and so he was deeply asleep when Vakama burst into the room.

"Whenua! Whenua, something weird's happening again!"

Whenua groaned and sat up. The first thing he noticed was that it was insanely bright in his room. _Oh joy,_ he thought, _I've overslept and now it's noon or something._ A quick glance at his clock confirmed it. "Vakama, you let me sleep until nine thirty? I had a class at eight; now I've missed it!"

"What? Whenua, it's nine thirty at night."

"Well what are you doing waking me up by turning the light on?"

There was a pause. "Whenua, I haven't even touched the light switch."

"Well then why's the room so bright? Turn it off, I don't do bright."

"But—! Listen! The room's pitch dark! Hey, Whenua, are your eyes glowing?"

"Don't be ridiculous—wait, Vakama, where are you?" Whenua had just noticed that while he could hear his roommate's voice, he couldn't see him.

"That's just it, Whenua! I'm invisible!"

If Vakama hadn't sounded so panicked, Whenua would have burst out laughing. "Invisible? How'd you manage to do that?"

"I don't know! How'd you suddenly come up with night vision?"

"I...don't have night vision."

"Okay, deny it and whatever, but you've got to come with me to see Lhikan!" There was a pause. "Are you coming?" Vakama's voice asked from the doorway.

"Dude, you really are invisible. Hold something so I can tell where you are, okay?"

A pair of Whenua's jeans, carelessly tossed aside on the floor, suddenly floated into the air. "Happy? Can we go now?"

Whenua followed his floating pants somewhat bewilderedly to the elevators. "By the way, Vakama, do you even know what floor Lhikan lives on?"

"Floor three, room seven," he said matter-of-factly. Whenua blinked at where he thought Vakama's head was. The pants moved up and down slightly, the only indication given that the newest Fire Toa had shrugged. "I asked him earlier."

They stepped into the elevator and Whenua pressed the 3. An awkward silence ensued until the elevator stopped at floor ten.

Two panicked-looking Nujus stepped on. Vakama nudged Whenua. "Is it just me, or am I seeing double?"

Then one of the Nujus spoke, somewhat hysterically. "Guys, I know this sounds crazy, but I'm Matau!" He blinked. "Wait, where's Vakama? I know I heard him..."

The pants, which Vakama had put over his arms, waved. "I'm invisible!"

"What happened, Matau?" Whenua asked, repeatedly jabbing the 'door close' button and trying not to think about what this night was doing to his poor sanity.

"I don't know. Nuju and I were talking—well, I was talking—and suddenly his eyes went wide and I was like "What?" and he was like "Don't look in the mirror" but I did anyway and I looked like this and—"

"Okay, I get the picture," Whenua sighed. It was then that he noticed that there were several random objects (besides Vakama's pants/arms) floating around the elevator. "Um, what's this?"

"That would be me," said the real Nuju.

"Yeah, right after I turned into Nuju stuff started floating and Nuju's eyes were glowing and when he directed them with his mind they went where he wanted but he couldn't figure out how to get them to stop so we're going to see Lhikan." It was really weird to hear a run-on sentence coming out of Nuju's mouth. (A/N: And apparently the run-on sentence is grammatically correct according to Word... O.o)

"Let's see..." Vakama said. "So you're shapeshifting, Nuju's telekinetic, I'm invisible, and Whenua has night vision. I really hope this has something to do with Toa, otherwise I'm going to be really freaked."

"I told you, I don't have night vision!" Whenua sighed, stepping out of the elevator, which had opened on the third floor.

"Well then how do you explain thinking it's bright as day in the room when it was pitch dark?"

"Being invisible makes you blind," he said stubbornly, heading for room 307 and knocking.

"Coming!" came a strange voice from the other side. The door opened to reveal a tall, skinny young man with dark hair and green eyes. He was wearing baggy jeans and a white beater, and was barefoot. He cocked an eyebrow at the strange assortment in front of him. "Lhikan, it's for you!" he called over his shoulder. "Come on in," he sighed, holding the door open. "I'm Nidhiki, Lhikan's roommate," he explained as the four of them filed in. "I'm gonna take a wild stab here and say you're those rookie Toa Dume was talking about?"

Vakama nodded, then remembered he was invisible. "Y-yes."

Lhikan walked out of his room. The dorm rooms were apartment-style, meaning each roommate got their own bedroom, but shared a kitchen and bathroom with one other person. The older Toa of Fire looked them up and down, then smacked his face with his hand. "Oh, I knew we forgot something! Kanohi powers!"

A shiver ran down Vakama's spine. "Ka...Kanohi?" _There's that word again,_ he thought.

"Right. Kanohi were the masks that the original Toa on Spherus-slash-Aqua Magna wore. Each one had a different power. It seems like those powers got transferred here, too, so let's see what I can remember." He pointed to Whenua. "Night vision."

"I do not have—!"

"Yes you do. Nuju...wait, which one's the real..."

"Me," Nuju said.

"Right. Telekinesis, obviously. Matau, shapeshifting. And Vakama, invisibility. Nokama's was...what was it?"

"Translation," Nidhiki said. "And the Stone one had mind control."

"Oh, right, this is Nidhiki," Lhikan said happily. "He's my roommate this year, and he's a Toa of Air like you, Matau."

"Look, this is great and all, but how do we stop, or at least control, our powers?" Nuju asked icily as a stray cup floated dangerously close to Whenua's head.

"Hey, that's mine!" Nidhiki yelped, grabbing the cup. "Rule number one: no using crazy psychic powers on stuff that's not yours!"

"That's not an actual rule, Nid," Lhikan sighed. "It's not that hard, once you're used to it," he explained to the rookies in front of him. "Just concentrate on turning it off. Sometimes, a break in concentration can cause your powers to falter, too, but that's only when you're more experienced and were actually trying to activate your powers. Well, anyway, give it a shot. Just...don't break anything, Nuju."

Nuju scowled—partly at Lhikan's last comment, partly in concentration. Slowly, the random assortment of objects started to sink to the ground at the same time as the top of Vakama's head came into view. Matau-Nuju's hair slowly turned back to Matau's brown-and-green variety. Whenua stood there awkwardly, having nothing to do. Finally, he turned to Nidhiki. "So, you're, um, a Toa too?"

"Toa Mangai of Air," he affirmed, nodding. "Right now, it's just me and Lhikan on our team. There used to be eleven, but..." He grimaced. "Well, shit happened, as shit does."

"Language, Nidhiki," Lhikan admonished, collecting some of Nuju's items as they hit the floor.

"Mangai?" Vakama asked.

Nidhiki gave him a funny look. Toa or not, talking to a floating head is a weird experience. "Yeah. Apparently, that means 'protector' in Matoran or something."

"Wait, I thought Matoran was a religion," Whenua said, confused.

"Here it is. On Spherus Magna, it's a race of beings, and a language."

"Okay, that's confusing."

"Look, I don't make this stuff up, okay?" the older Air Toa snapped.

"I did it!"

This outburst came from Matau, who looked like Matau again, and was doing a victory dance. It was a very good thing that he looked like Matau again, because no one wanted to see Nuju doing stupid disco moves while singing "Happy days are here again!"

"Good job, guys," Lhikan said, putting the last of Nuju's previously floating objects away. "I'd show you how to control them but...this is a bad time. It's getting late. You should all head for bed; training starts tomorrow, or did you forget?"

"Of course not," Vakama said, propping his now-visible hands on his also visible hips. "Tomorrow night, gym, six thirty sharp. Wear athletic clothes." He looked at Nidhiki. "Are you going to be joining us?"

He shrugged. "Maybe. It would be good for the airhead here to see an experienced Toa of Air in action."

"Hey!" Matau said indignantly, since he was the one that the 'airhead' comment had been directed at.

"Right, out, you lot. I'll find Nokama and Onewa tomorrow and explain about their Kanohi powers. It's kind of hard for translation and mind control to go out of control," Lhikan sighed, ushering them towards the door. As he opened it, he saw Nokama and Onewa standing there. "What is it?"

Onewa's eyes were glowing blue, the same colour they'd been when he became a Toa. "I can't get people to stop doing what I tell them to!" he said, his voice panicky.

Nokama said something in German.

"On second thought," Lhikan said, "maybe it's not hard for them to go crazy."

* * *

After Nokama and Onewa were back to normal and the Toa Metru had finally left, Lhikan sighed and stretched. He turned to see Nidhiki studying him. "What?"

"When are you planning on telling them?" he asked bluntly.

Lhikan decided to play the innocent card. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You can't play dumb with me; I've known you too long," his friend snapped. "When are you going to tell them that you don't have your powers anymore?"

He looked away. "I...I don't know. Hopefully never. Knowing Vakama, he'd just blame himself. I don't want that."

"Well, it won't work forever. You're going to have to tell them eventually."

"I know, okay?" Lhikan snapped. "Jeez, Nid!" The dark haired man shrugged and walked back into his room, leaving Lhikan alone in the kitchen. He ran a hand through his blonde hair and sighed. "Dammit," he muttered, heading for his room too.

* * *

Vakama and Whenua talked on the way back to their room. "I don't know," Whenua sighed, stepping out of the elevator. "It was just so weird to think, you know? I mean, having power over the earth is freaky enough without throwing night vision in there too."

"Try turning invisible," Vakama sighed. "Plus, right before it happened, I...I had another vision." Whenua did a double take. This was news to him. "About plans for masks...masks like the ones Lhikan was talking about."

"Kanohi?"

"Right. And that word was floating around in my head before, too." There was a pause. Then: "Whenua? Do you think I'm going crazy?"

"What? No! Of course not!"

"Well...that makes one of us." They'd reached their room by this point, and Vakama unlocked the door and headed for his bedroom. "G'night, Nua."

Whenua shook his head and sighed. "Night, Vak."

* * *

**Edit: added page breaks. Now it looks less messy.  
Thanks for reading! Please review OwO**


	5. Start

**This is kind of late, but not too much. I've been busy (huge project involving a cardboard cutout, etc.) and I only had time to upload one chapter on Monday, and I really wanted Rahi Warrior to be updated. So here we are.  
I like this chapter because we get our first look at Nidhiki becoming a Dark Hunter. That and I just like it for some reason. I'm being really evil with cliffies right now, huh?  
Anyway, thanks for reading, and please review! Constructive criticism is always appreciated.  
~Ed**

Chapter 5: Start

Nuju woke up to his clock radio blaring the 1812 Overture at full blast. (Pun fully intended.) He rolled over with a moan and fumbled with it, trying to shut it up before Matau woke up, too. _Note to self,_ he thought, _turn volume down._

"Hey! Nuju!"

_Oh, God, it's the idiot._

Not bothering to knock, Matau burst into the room. "It's the first day of college! Come on, get up!"

"Matau, we don't even have the same classes. Go away."

"Aw, come on, Nuju!" he whined, trying to drag his roommate out of bed. "Aren't you even a little excited?"

Nuju shrugged. "Why? In the end, it's just more school."

"But—! We start Toa training today, too!"

With a jolt, Nuju suddenly remembered the events of the previous day and night. _Right, Toa,_ he thought. _How could I forget?_

"Okay, Matau. Fine. I'm up. Happy?"

In response, Matau beamed and practically skipped into the kitchen, where he proceeded to consume a bowl of the sugariest cereal known to man, "Crazy Chok'lit Mallow Sugar Overloadz!1!" (Actual spelling.) He held out the box to Nuju. "Wonn shum?" he asked, his mouth full.

Nuju recoiled and slammed the door. He turned around and slid down it. _It's going to be a long day._

* * *

Vakama looked from his schedule to the room number and back. Yep, this was his classroom, alright. He just hadn't expected there to be a giant projector hanging from the ceiling. College was definitely more high-tech than his old high school.

And a lot more expensive. He glanced at the thick textbook under his arm that he'd bought less than five minutes ago. He could practically hear his debit card bawling away in his wallet.

He quickly found a seat next to the wall. A few minutes later, a boy about his age with black hair combed over one eye wearing tight leather pants and a dark red sweater slouched in and sat next to him. Deciding that it wouldn't hurt to be friendly—hey, it worked last night, right?—he smiled at him. "Hi," he said.

The boy looked surprised, as though he hadn't expected Vakama to talk to him. "Hi," he replied.

"I'm Vakama."

"Sidorak." Sidorak nodded at Vakama's shirt. "Like the shirt."

Vakama smiled. He was wearing a t-shirt with Kermit the Frog's face on it, under which it said, "There is nothing that can't be fixed with Muppets".

"Thanks," he said. "This is English, right?"

"Last I checked. What program you from?"

"General Arts. You?"

"Dental Hygene. But my real passion is bugs." He studied Vakama's face.

"What?" Vakama asked. "Is there something on my face?"

"No, sorry," Sidorak sighed. "It's just, usually, people laugh when I say I like bugs."

"Why? Bugs are cool."

This seemed to relax Sidorak, and they chatted amiably until the teacher came in and started her whole 'first day of class' spiel about plagiarism and all that fun stuff. One of the first things she did was assign an in-class essay, to be written next week, as a review of a newspaper article or short story of their choice, so that she could evaluate what level they were writing at. Then she went on to talk about the 'easy' way to write an essay. She used good imagery—talking about LEGO and houses and dancing, oh my!—which gave Vakama hope. He wasn't usually good at English, but hopefully that would change.

After class, he said goodbye to Sidorak and went in search of the cafeteria. He knew where it was, but not how to get there from his class. He bought himself some (unfairly expensive) pizza and went in search of a free seat in the cafeteria.

Take the busiest food court, cafeteria, or other food-service-related place you can think of. Now imagine it during the lunch rush. Multiply the number of people there by sixty-two million and four, and you won't come close to how many people there seemingly were in that cafeteria. Vakama was sure his pizza was getting cold when he heard a voice. "Hey, Vakama, over here!"

He turned around, and there were his teammates, Lhikan, and Nidhiki. Lhikan was waving, since he'd been the one who'd called Vakama over. "We saved you a spot," he said, as Vakama took his tray over. "This place gets nuts from around eleven to two."

"Sometimes even longer," Nidhiki added, picking at his soup.

"Good first class?" Nokama asked. She had a sandwich.

He nodded. "I met this guy named Sidorak. Seemed like a nice guy."

Onewa stopped drowning his fries in vinegar and sat up straight. "No way. Sidorak King?"

"You know him?"

"Dude, he's my roommate! I told you that last night."

Matau stopped stuffing his face with jello long enough to laugh. "Man, what're the odds?"

Nuju flung a bit of purple cabbage from his salad at Matau. "Shut up. We don't need to see that jello a second time."

Whenua just sighed and rolled his eyes at Vakama over his coffee.

"Ahem," Lhikan said, pushing aside his empty paper bag. "So I called you all here today—"

"You didn't call anyone," Nidhiki pointed out. "We all just randomly showed up."

"As I was saying," Lhikan continued, making Nidhiki frown, "I called you all here today because I wanted to discuss a couple of things. Namely, training and secrecy."

"Yeah, I had a question," Onewa said. "We had this epic battle of supernatural powers yesterday, in broad daylight, on a busy street. Why isn't this all over the news?"

"Well, that's something I wanted to bring up," Lhikan answered, nodding. "See, remember how we were talking about Matoran yesterday?" General noises of consent, accompanied by much nodding, followed. "Well, we work with them to keep this all hush-hush and off the Internet, out of the news, and so on."

"Why?" Nuju asked. "Wouldn't it be easier if we didn't have to hide?"

"Not everything works the way it does in _Superman_," Nidhiki said. "I mean, people in real life wouldn't be all that accepting if a guy in blue tights randomly saved a bunch of people from a burning building. They'd want to study him, see what he's all about—maybe even dissect him, if they're really sick. It'd be more of an _X-Men_ scenario than a _Justice League_ scenario, ya know?"

"Plus, that's, like, the number one law of superheroes," Lhikan added. "Always have a secret identity. That way, the bad guys can't come knocking on your door."

Vakama pushed his pizza away. Suddenly, he wasn't hungry anymore. "So, we can't tell anyone? Not family, not friends?"

"Especially not them," Nidhiki stressed. "Trust me, it's a bad idea." That last part, he said quietly, like he was remembering something painful.

Vakama, however, wasn't paying attention. He'd never kept a secret of this proportion from his family or Kapura before. Then again, he'd never had a secret this big to have to keep before. It didn't sit right with him, and he felt a big ball of guilt settling in his stomach, replacing his hunger.

"Hey, you gonna eat that?" Matau asked, pointing to his pizza. Vakama pushed it towards him, and he grinned and shovelled it in.

Lhikan put a hand on his shoulder. "Look, I know it's hard, but we're all here for each other, and so is Dume. Life as a Toa can be hard sometimes, but knowing that you're making a difference makes it that much more rewarding." He checked his watch and made a face. "Look at me, making a big speech when there's class to go to! See you at training tonight," he said, standing up.

"Wait, you said you wanted to talk about training," Whenua said. "What did you want to say?"

"Oh, I just wanted to remind you that we're training tonight. See you later." And he was gone.

Nidhiki rolled his eyes. "He does that," he informed them. Glancing out the window on a whim, he thought he caught a glimpse of a willowy girl watching them. "I have to go," he said abruptly, standing up. Without any more words of farewell—or anything else for that matter—he was gone.

Once outside, Nidhiki activated his stealth power—'Volitak,' it was called—and followed the girl he'd seen. She didn't seem to be doing anything suspicious, but last month Dume had informed him, Lhikan, and Naho, the Toa of Water who had once been on their team, that someone calling himself "The Shadowed One" was sending agents into Metru Nui, trying to establish a base for their dark operations there. For all he knew, she could be one of these "Dark Hunters" he'd been talking about. It was too bad she was potentially evil; she was actually kind of pretty. She had black hair cut into a short bob, with bright green streaks matching her cutoff tank top. She seemed to have a thing for netting, as she was wearing a netted shirt over her tank top and some fishnet stockings poked above her knee-high black boots.

She glanced behind her and he tensed before remembering that he was invisible. Was that a smirk on her face? She ducked behind one of the portables that housed the computer labs and he followed.

This time, she faced him fully. "I know you're there," she said, a smirk in her voice as well as on her face.

Seeing no point in being invisible if the person you're hiding from can see you anyway, Nidhiki shut his Kanohi power down and assumed a battle stance. "Who are you?" he demanded.

She gave a mock bow. "The name's Lariska. I'm a Dark Hunter. I wish I could say, 'nice to meet you,' but Momma always told us not to lie." She winked.

"You're the first Hunter I've met who's this...open," he commented, not once moving from his stance.

Lariska didn't seem all that concerned with fighting him. Instead, she shrugged nonchalantly and said, "If I'd thought you'd squeal, you'd be dead by now." Suddenly, she was in front of him, a small knife that he hadn't known was there pressed to his throat. "Or I could kill you anyway."

It was his turn to shrug—as well as he could with a knife pressed to his throat. "You won't. I'm too good-looking to die."

To his surprise, she laughed and removed the knife. He didn't see it go away—it was just gone. "You amuse me," she said, the smirk returning. "I think I'll let you live."

"Gee, thanks," he muttered.

"Don't go thanking me just yet," she said, but when he looked up he didn't see her. He tensed and immediately activated his Kanohi power. "Nice reflexes," her voice said. It was coming from above him, but he couldn't tell where from. "The Hunters are always looking for new...ah, talent, if you know what I mean. Help us capture Dume, and you can basically get whatever you want."

Nidhiki didn't bother pointing out that most people would go after the mayor, not the old man behind a college's security, when trying to take over a city, because they both knew who really ran Metru Nui. His moral compass had never exactly pointed North, but now it was spinning wildly. "Give me a day."

"No." She reappeared next to him, the knife back at its usual place: his throat. "Do or die, Flyboy."

But he would go down in history as the one who betrayed Metru Nui! Or...or would he? _The media can twist things around,_ he thought, a smile beginning to creep onto his face.

"Do what you want with the others," he said, "but I want Metru Nui. You can even establish your own base here, if you still want it. Take it or leave it."

"Actually, I could take it or kill you now," she quipped, "but like I said, you amuse me." The knife was gone again. "I'll talk to the Shadowed One. Meet me here tomorrow. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel."

Nidhiki wondered how old she was if she could quote super-old Batman TV shows, and made the mistake of giving this question a voice. He almost lost his nose. "It's not polite to ask a lady her age," she said, feigned patience barely disguising the hiss that came out.

Knowing he was probably digging his own grave, he muttered, "You're no lady."

She thought about it. "True." And the knife disappeared to wherever it went. "Well, Flyboy, if the Shadowed One finds you as intriguing as I do, we may have a deal." She started to walk off, and when Nidhiki went to follow her, she turned, steel glinting in her red eyes. "Don't bother," she said icily. He stopped, and she went around the corner of the building. He waited five seconds, then tore around the corner. She was nowhere to be found.

* * *

Vakama watched as Lhikan demonstrated a basic fighting stance and tried to copy it. "Spread your legs to about shoulder width," Lhikan explained. "Put most of your weight on your back leg, but be ready to switch forward quickly. Step with your back foot…" He demonstrated, slowly punching with his left arm. "And punch with the step. Use your momentum to your advantage." He gestured to the rookie Toa. "Now you try."

It went on like that for a little while. Finally, Lhikan said, "Good job, guys. Now you have to practice Toa powers."

The Toa Metru stared at him. They were all sore from the last hour and tired from their first days of classes. When they started to grumble, Nidhiki said, "Hey, you want to control this stuff or not? You won't get far without training." He glanced at Lhikan. "I'll take the airhead and a couple others. You take the firespitter and the other two." The Air Toa gestured at Matau, who was pouting about the 'airhead' comment again. "You, and Nokama, and, uh, Onewa. You three come with me." Sighing, the three of them followed him to the other side of the gymnasium.

"Lhikan," Vakama said nervously, "are you sure it's a good idea to be practicing this stuff out in the open like this? I mean, what if someone walks in? Isn't this supposed to be super secret?"

"Nah," Lhikan laughed, waving the comment away with his hand. "I mean, yes, it's supposed to be super secret, but there's no windows into here, and the doors are locked. Now do your Toa thing."

Vakama glanced at Whenua, who shrugged, and Nuju, who ignored him. He drew himself up to his full height (which wasn't very tall, but still tall enough), closed his eyes, and concentrated on his Unity, Duty, and Destiny. When he opened his eyes again, he was in his Toa uniform. Whenua and Nuju had also transformed—but for some reason Lhikan hadn't.

"You gonna 'do your Toa thing?'" Whenua asked.

He shook his head. "I want to see what you can do. Try not to break anything; Dume can only cover so much up."

"I thought you said the Matoran do cover up jobs," Whenua said.

"Yeah, but Dume's a Turaga," Lhikan replied, as though that explained everything. When they all looked at him blankly, he sighed. "A Turaga is a former Toa who has lost or given up their powers because they have achieved their destiny. They're kind of like leaders for Matoran." He clapped his hands twice. "Okay, enough chitchat! Vakama, I want to see a fireball. A controlled fireball. Whenua, let's see how you are at deploying the earth in that conveniently placed potted plant over there to do your bidding. And Nuju, make it snow on Matau. Do not turn him into a Matau-cicle, no matter how tempting it may be. Just make it snow over there. Go."

This, of course, produced, ahem, mixed results. A blizzard started raging through the gym, the potted plant uprooted itself and the dirt in the pot started flying around, and Vakama nearly set himself on fire. Nidhiki, who had taken shelter in the equipment closet, was having a ball laughing his head off. Lhikan, on the other hand, was not amused. "_**STOP!**_" he screamed, and everything immediately calmed down. "Well," he said, getting himself back under control, "we sure have our work cut out for us."

Their enemies chose that moment to attack.


	6. Ambush

**Okay, now that we have all that Valentine's business out of the way, we can continue with Metru Uni! Spot the Pac-Man reference and you get a virtual cookie. Spot the Support Your Local Sherriff reference and win a virtual _brownie_. Spot _both_ and win a virtual _cake_!  
Ahem. So yeah, I had fun writing this chapter. But I'd better get back on writing this because I've only got up to halfway through Chapter 8 done and that'll be coming up soon...  
Also, it's a running gag that Nidhiki never says the Shadowed One's name right.  
Anyway, thanks for reading! Please review; constructive criticism is always appreciated!**

Chapter 6: Ambush

Nidhiki's eyes widened. _Are the Dark Hunters behind this?_ he thought. _I guess the Shadowed Guy didn't take kindly to my request…_

But these were too streamlined to be Dark Hunters. They looked almost like cyborgs or androids, and as far as anyone knew, the Hunters didn't have that kind of tech.

There were four of them, and they looked almost like carbon copies of each other. They all had pasty skin, dark hair, and sickly glowing green eyes. The only differences were the colours of their jumpsuits—Nidhiki assumed that was so whoever made them could tell them apart. One wore red, one wore pink, one wore light blue, and the last one wore orange.

Lhikan stepped forward boldly, which was a lot better than most of them were doing. "Who're you?" he demanded.

"We are Mickey," the red one said.

"Nicky," the pink one added.

"Ricky," the blue one continued.

"And Frank," the orange one finished proudly.

There was a pause. Then Matau said, "You've got to be joke-kidding me."

Ricky shook his head. "Master made the mistake of letting us choose our own names…"

"But that is the only mistake he made!" Mickey proclaimed. "We are the perfect life-forms! I suggest you surrender to us now, and we will not have to kill you too painfully."

Beaming, Lhikan turned to his students. "Well, this seems like it would be a good training exercise. Have at 'em."

The Toa Metru stared at him in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding! We almost blew up the place five seconds ago, and you want us to fight for our lives all of a sudden?" Vakama protested.

Lhikan nodded. "Yeah, that's the gist of it. Have fun." And he walked to the back of the gym to sit on a bench with Nidhiki.

"Ahem."

They turned around. Frank was waving at them. "We're still waiting for your surrender," he said.

Vakama frowned. "Here's our surrender," he snapped, creating a fireball and sending it flying at Nicky's head. Nicky simply moved his head slightly and the fireball missed.

"Oh, good," he said with a thin smile. "This might last more than a minute."

Without thinking, Vakama turned to his teammates. "Well?"

They attacked as one. Nokama and Nuju went after Ricky, Matau and Onewa went after Nicky, and Whenua and Vakama teamed up against Mickey and Frank.

Nuju tried shooting a bit of his power at Ricky, but apparently he didn't have as good a cap on it as he'd thought, and he ended up freezing the robot solid. Appalled, he moved away slightly. "Wh…"

Nokama tilted her head and propped her hands on her hips. "Well, that was anti-climactic."

She immediately ate her words as the ice shattered and Ricky glared at them. "Pitiful," he snarled. "We are the ultimate life-forms—nothing you do will be effective!"

"Unless you hit the glowing self-destruct button on our backs," Frank interjected, circling around Vakama and Whenua, who were standing back to back between him and Mickey.

Mickey glared at him. "Frank! Shut up!"

"What do you mean?" Whenua asked.

"Nothing," Frank said hastily, seeming to realize what he'd just said.

"You don't have the right programming to mean nothing," Nicky snarled.

On his next pass by Mickey, Matau reached around and slapped the glowing circle he could see through the android's jumpsuit. Mickey shuddered and crumpled to the ground. Then he exploded. Vakama absorbed the brunt of the blast—which was fine because of his resistance to fire—and it sent him flying backwards into Frank. The orange-suited cyborg grinned at him. "Hello, Toa," he said pleasantly.

Vakama gulped.

On the other side of the gym, Nicky had backed himself against the wall so that there was no way Nuju or Nokama could reach his self destruct button. He dodged another ice blast and came up snarling. "You cannot defeat me!" he screamed. "I am the ultimate…"

_Beep_.

Nicky had backed up right into the wall, pressing his own button. His eyes widened as the two Toa he'd been fighting dove out of the way. "Oops," he said lamely before he exploded.

Frank had Vakama in a full Nelson and was using him as a human shield. Whenua growled. He couldn't attack because he was afraid he'd hit Vakama; plus it probably wouldn't do any good anyway, if freezing them solid did nothing. Nokama and Nuju were coming over to help, and Nuju went over to help Matau and Onewa while the only female Toa Metru joined Whenua. Vakama was kicking Frank in the shins, but it didn't do any good. Then he got an idea.

The android yelped and let go as his captive's body temperature soared beyond that of a raging forest fire. The Toa of Fire panted, backing away from Frank and trying to lower his body temperature again. Nokama tried to make a small raincloud over his head to cool him off, but missed slightly and a rainstorm was soon raging through the gym.

Lhikan activated his Kanohi power of 'Hau,' or shielding, keeping him and Nidhiki dry. "Great show, this," he commented with a smirk.

Nidhiki rolled his eyes.

Nokama managed to get the storm under control just as Ricky fell over, courtesy of a slippery floor and a gust of wind from Matau. Of course, he landed on his back.

Frank was all alone against six angry, wet Toa. He gave a weak smile and a wave. "Um…bye!" He tried to flee, but a rock slammed into his back and he blew up with a customary "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Everyone looked at Onewa, who shrugged. "He annoyed me."

They heard someone clapping, and they turned around to see Lhikan, a huge grin on his face, walking towards them while applauding. "Great job, guys! Of course, it won't always be that easy."

"Explain to me what part of that was easy?" Nuju asked icily.

"Well, for one thing, they admit-told us their weakness right away," Matau said.

Lhikan nodded. "And they were fairly incompetent."

"One thing's bothering me," Vakama said. "One of them said something about 'Master.' Who did they mean?"

The two Toa Mangai glanced at each other. "Well, it could be a lot of things," Lhikan began slowly. "It could be the Dark Hunters—a bunch of evildoers who're trying to establish a base in the city. They'd be the most obvious ones, but there are always lots of people who're trying to get possession of the city."

Vakama had to ask the obvious question. "Why?"

Nidhiki, who had flinched slightly when Lhikan brought up the Hunters, shook his head. "We don't know. We only know that it's not a good idea, and there's no way Dume'll ever let it happen."

Lhikan looked around at the mess and sighed. "Well, we may as well clean this up. Change back; you don't want your Toa uniforms getting all dirty."

Grumbling, the rookie Toa resumed their regular forms and went about straightening the gym. They even found a 'Caution: Wet Floor' sign to put in the door, since they weren't able to dry all of Nokama's mess up. Lhikan claimed he'd finish up and shooed them out the door. Nidhiki stayed behind to help.

About halfway back to the residence, Vakama realized something. "Dang, I left my sweater back in the gym. I'll see you back at the room, Whenua."

"You sure you don't want someone to go with you?" Whenua called after him.

Vakama waved. "I'll be fine!" he replied as he faded from view.

Whenua smirked. _You can't attack what you can't see.

* * *

_

The shadowy being watched in the mirror in front of him as Vakama turned invisible and headed back to the gym building. It sat back and pondered the fate of its robots. _Well, they were inevitably incompetent failures,_ it thought, _but on the bright side I did get to learn more about the Toa Metru._

If the being had had a mouth, there would have been a devilish smirk painted across it. _They seem like they can be easily divided, exploited, corrupted…who knows, maybe even converted. This could be fun.

* * *

_

Vakama became visible again as he neared the gym. He didn't want to give his mentors heart attacks. But he stopped when he heard Nidhiki's voice.

"…tell them?"

"I told you, I don't know! Hopefully I never will." That was Lhikan's voice. "I know them, and it would tear them up."

"You've managed to get this far, but how long can you hold up? You have to tell them, Lhikan."

"I know!" Vakama had never heard Lhikan sound more agitated. "Look, Nid, you don't understand! Vakama would just blame himself, and I don't want that to happen." Vakama was shocked. This had something to do with him? "I won't be telling them. Not just yet."

"Then I might have to for you," Nidhiki snapped. "They deserve better than this, Lhikan. You've got to trust them and tell them what you did."

Vakama couldn't help it anymore. "Lhikan?" he called from the doorway. Both Toa Mangai turned around, shocked. "What did you do?" he asked, his voice trembling.

Lhikan ran a hand through his hair and grumbled, "Damn."

"Lhikan," Vakama said, stronger this time, "tell me."

The older man looked away. Nidhiki scowled. "He sacrificed his Toa powers to give you guys yours," he snapped. "That's what he's trying so hard not to tell you."

Vakama stared at the blonde. "Wh-what? Why?"

"Because I had to," Lhikan said helplessly. "It was the only way I could think of."

"What he's not saying," Nidhiki countered, "is that I could've helped and he might have retained more than just his Kanohi shielding power."

"That's just a theory; we'll never know for sure," Lhikan protested.

"Yeah, we'll never know now," Nidhiki snapped. "Because you had to go and be the hero!"

"Stop it!" Vakama yelled. The other two turned to look at him. He had a pained and betrayed look on his face. "Why were we so important that you had to give up a lifetime of being a hero? What's so special about us? We're just a bunch of rookies who could really use a lot of help and now the city's only hope is us and Nidhiki!"

"Exactly. You and Nidhiki. Seven instead of two. I thought it was a fair trade."

By the look on the rookie Toa's face, he didn't share the sentiment. "But we're not even heroes yet!"

"Not yet. But with proper training, hopefully, soon you will be." Lhikan sighed. "Look, Vakama, you don't understand. You guys…you have a destiny beyond anything you could ever imagine. If I have to lose my powers for that, then so be it."

Vakama shook his head and stumbled backward a little. "N-no…it's not fair!" he screamed, turning and running away.

"Vakama, wait!" Lhikan yelled, running after him.

Nidhiki waited a beat, then sighed and looked around at the still slightly messy gym. "And the cleanup goes to Nidhiki. Again."

* * *

Vakama slammed the door to his and Whenua's room and locked it. There was pounding from the other side, and Whenua immediately went on the defensive. "What's going on?" he asked. Then he noticed the angry tears in Vakama's eyes. "Vak? You okay?"

Vakama sniffed and nodded. He then proceeded to tell Whenua what Lhikan and Nidhiki had told him. Eventually, the knocking on the door subsided and finally vanished completely. Whenua's reaction to the news was a lot more shock and a lot less emotion than Vakama's reaction. "Geez. Well, it does explain a lot," he remarked, running a hand through his hair. "Like why we haven't seen him in Toa form since he first transformed us yesterday."

The younger man shook his head. "I just don't see why he had to give up everything for us. I mean, half of us don't even get along all that well."

"He…I don't know. He must've thought he was doing the right thing. And if Dume allowed it…there must've been a reason." Whenua clapped his roommate on the shoulder. "Look, Vak, don't get too worked up about it. The past is the past. The best we can do right now is record it and live for today. Right?" Generally, Whenua was more of a 'dwell on the past so we can learn from their mistakes' kind of guy, but that wouldn't do much good in a pep talk.

Vakama sighed and nodded. "I'm going to bed. Night, Nua."

Whenua watched the redhead shuffle into his bedroom and gave a sigh of his own. "Night, Vak."

* * *

Nidhiki tossed and turned in his bed. He couldn't sleep. He felt kind of guilty about breaking the news to Vakama in that way, but he was getting annoyed with Lhikan's skirting around the issue. Besides, what did it matter? The city would probably be overrun with Dark Hunters soon anyway.

The Toa Mangai wondered if he should be feeling some twinge of guilt over what he was planning to do, and was a little surprised to find that he didn't. Dume had always bugged him—him and his all-seeing, all-knowing Turaga-ness! And Lhikan was always trying to be the hero, and sometimes it had disastrous effects. He remembered Naho, one of the Water Toa who'd been on their team until the Dark Hunters killed her. Nidhiki did feel slightly guilty for siding with the people who had killed his sister in arms, but he pushed that aside and focused on his anger at Lhikan. Guilt would get you killed if you allied with the Dark Hunters; anger could help you survive.

There was a cough and he sat bolt upright. Standing at the foot of his bed was Lariska. She was still wearing her fishnets and boots, but he didn't see any daggers this time.

He was immediately on his guard anyway, though. He knew how quickly she could get those things from seemingly nowhere.

She held up a hand. "Relax, Flyboy," she said quietly. "I just came here to talk."

"How the hell did you get in?" he hissed.

A smirk flitted across her face. "I got in how I got in. That's not important. I came here tonight to tell you that the attack earlier wasn't us."

The Air Toa froze. "It wasn't you? Then who was it?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't think even the Shadowed One does. But we're not the only ones who want Metru Nui. Remember that when you run the place."

Nidhiki caught that. "Does that mean the Shady Bloke agreed?"

"It's 'the Shadowed One,'" Lariska snapped, "but yes. Meet me behind the same portable tomorrow at sunset and we'll go over the details."

"One more thing," he said quickly, before she could disappear again. "Why does everyone want Metru Nui? What's so special about this hunk of rock anyway?"

The smirk found its way back onto her face. "Come find me tomorrow and I'll tell you," she replied mysteriously. Then he blinked, and she was gone.

* * *

**Edit: Fadabladagah I keep forgetting the page breaks!  
Thanks for reading! Please review and fuel my soul! (And my plot bunnies)**


	7. Betray

***headdesk* I know, I know. It's late. Really late. But I forgot my memory stick and then I had no internet access for a week. On the bright side, though, I got more than one review for the last chapter! Yay!  
*ahem* Explanation time. To understand what Telephone Hour is, look it up on YouTube. Why is there a Bye Bye Birdie reference, you ask? Well, a) I'm obsessed with Broadway (seriously, it's not healthy) and b) I was in BBB last year. (See my oneshot 'Doris Finally Snaps.' Seriously, I even wrote a fanfiction.) And apparently I decided to insert part of my life into MU. /shot  
This chapter is full of angst and stuff. And the Toa Metru kind of take a bit of a backseat. But it's a Nidhiki chapter! Yay!  
Also, what is it with me and Chapter 7 and the theme of betrayal? Seriously, this is the third fic I've written with Chapter 7 having something to do with betrayal. Weird.  
Thanks for reading, and please review! Constructive criticism is always appreciated.  
*If you think I own Bionicle, you are sadly misguided. I do, however, own the character designs, etc.***

Chapter 7: Betray

"Hey, look at this!"

Whenua and Vakama were on their way to the cafeteria to meet the other Toa Metru and tell them what Vakama had learned. Vakama turned around to see Whenua looking at a paper on a bulletin board. "'Judo classes, every day for five weeks.'"

Vakama grimaced. "That sounds gruelling."

"No, it means you can pick the Monday class, or the Tuesday class, and so on, according to your schedule." He grinned down at the freshman. "This could be part of our training! We should talk to Lhikan about it."

Vakama inspected the flyer. "Nua, it's sixty bucks a person. How many college students have that much to spend?"

Whenua shrugged. "I got in on mostly scholarships, plus I had an RESP, and I work every weekend at my uncle's farm in Po-Metru for some extra cash."

"Well, not everyone's as organized as you," Vakama sighed, starting to walk away. "Come on, we're going to be late."

Whenua shrugged, but took one of the little slips with the contact info on it anyway, just in case.

They needn't have worried. The only ones there were Nokama and Nuju. Nuju was reading and Nokama was stirring her coffee absentmindedly. She brightened up when she saw Vakama and Whenua approaching. "There you guys are!" she said. "I hope you don't mind, but Kiina wanted to meet everyone, so she'll be stopping by later."

Whenua grinned. "Sure. We'll just cut the T-O-A talk around her."

Nuju glanced up from his book. "Was there a specific reason you called us here?" he asked icily. He had another salad, but he was ignoring it in favour of his book and, currently, his fellow Toa.

"Well, I wanted to wait until the others got here…"

"Matau's not coming," Nuju replied. "He has class."

"So does Onewa," Nokama added. "He told me when we met on the elevator this morning."

"Why didn't they tell the ones who called the meeting?" Vakama asked wearily.

"Because they didn't have time to reply to your email?" Whenua suggested.

"So what did you need to talk about?" Nokama asked.

Vakama and Whenua proceeded to explain that Lhikan had given up his Toa powers, minus his Kanohi power, to give the Toa Metru theirs. Nokama looked shocked, and even Nuju managed to dredge up some emotion at the news.

"Why?" Nokama asked, staring at Vakama.

"He said something about 'you have a destiny beyond anything you could ever imagine' or something, but he wouldn't tell me what it was."

"That's because you ran out on me in the middle of my explanation."

Vakama must've jumped about three feet in the air at the sound of Lhikan's voice right behind him. He turned and looked up at the former Fire Toa. "What?"

"I was going to say that I didn't want to tell you because I knew you'd react this way." Vakama blushed; was he really that predictable? "Also, your guys' destiny...it's massive. I don't quite know exactly what it is, but it's life changing. World changing, even. Who am I to stand in the way of destiny?"

"Well then," Nuju said, speaking up for the first time since he'd asked why Vakama had called the meeting, "what's your destiny?"

Lhikan shook his head. "I don't know. I suppose I'll find out when I get there. Maybe it was creating you guys."

"Give a guy powers just so he can go give them to a bunch of other people?" Whenua paraphrased sceptically. "Paging the Department of Redundancy Department."

Lhikan laughed. "Well, when you put it that way, it does sound kind of silly. But who knows? Mata Nui works in weird ways sometimes. You learn to deal." He sat down next to Nokama. "Anything else you wanted to ask me?"

"Oh, I saw this," Whenua said, pushing the contact info for the judo class towards Lhikan. "I thought it might be useful to our training."

Lhikan nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe. But only if people have the money. Dume'll help you out if you need it, though, so it shouldn't be a problem."

Everyone started talking about judo and karate and other martial arts. Vakama kept checking his watch—he had a class soon—and was checking it again when a female voice behind him sang, "Hi, Nokama!"

Nokama waved. "Hi, Kiina!" she sang back.

Vakama turned to see a tall young woman with—were those bright blue pigtails? She was wearing a baggy t-shirt with some band Vakama had never heard of plastered on the front, and skinny jeans tucked into cowboy boots. He assumed this was Kiina, Nokama's roommate.

In response to Nokama's response, Kiina grinned impishly and sang, "What's the story, morning glory?"

"What's the word, hummingbird?" Nokama countered. The boys all looked at each other and shrugged.

Whenua raised an eyebrow. "Telephone Hour?"

Kiina looked at him, surprised. "Yeah, from _Bye Bye Birdie_. How'd you know?"

"I love old Broadway shows," he explained. "Why are you singing that?"

The bluenette shrugged. "My cousin Gresh and I were in it last year—he played Hugo, I played Mrs. MacAffee—and I fell in love with the show. That's how everyone who was in the show greets each other."

"And she taught it to me," Nokama finished. She grinned at her roommate. "Kiina, this is Whenua, Lhikan, Nuju, and Vakama. Guys, this is Kiina."

Kiina flashed another Kiina Grin © at them. "Hey," she greeted. "Nokama's been talking nonstop about you guys, so I figured I'd better meetcha!" She seemed to inspect Vakama, making him feel slightly uncomfortable, then nodded, as though she found him satisfactory. "So what're you all talkin' about?"

"Martial arts," Lhikan said with a smile.

"Ooh, I love karate," she said with a beam. "I'm a brown belt with two stripes in Shorinji Kempo Karate." She said that proudly, so Vakama assumed that was good.

He checked his watch again, then hastily stood up. "You can have my chair," he told Kiina. "I have a class." Waving, he hurried out of the cafeteria.

On his way to class (Math—ugh), he nearly bumped into Nidhiki. But before he could apologise, the Air Toa had wandered off, a distracted look on his face. He seemed preoccupied.

_What's with him?_ Vakama thought as he watched him go.

* * *

Nidhiki sat next to the portable. The ground was hard and uncomfortable, but it was better than standing for the next few hours.

He sighed. Maybe he was too early. But he hadn't been able to get his meeting out of his head all day, and it made him distracted. There was no point going to class today if he was just going to space out anyway. He may as well be at the meeting place, just in case Lariska decided to show up early. Besides, he didn't even know what time sunset was. Nidhiki had never bothered to pay attention to that sort of thing.

The Toa Mangai leaned his head back against the portable wall and stared up at the sky. He could always go flying, but he didn't really feel like it. He could fly all he wanted when the city was his to command. When the city was his...

* * *

Lariska twirled a knife in her hand almost absentmindedly, staring intently at the Shadowed One. "You sure about this?" she asked. Normally, questioning the Shadowed One would get a person killed, but Lariska was one of his elites, not to mention personal favourites. He tended to overlook things like that for his favourites. "He is a Toa. He could be betraying us. Plus, we're supposed to hand over control of the city. I know you. You don't like sharing."

The colossus in front of her shrugged with a smile. "If he'd wanted to betray us, he would have already done so. And explain this to him: he will be able to do pretty much whatever he wants...but he will have to do whatever I ask of him. Metru Nui will still belong to me."

Lariska's mouth twitched upwards in a smirk. "Nidhiki won't like that."

"No, I suppose he won't. But if he objects..." The Shadowed One's eyes flashed.

Lariska understood. She didn't necessarily relish the thought of killing someone with so much potential for evil, but she understood: no one must ever know. The veteran Dark Hunter bowed and disappeared.

* * *

"Wakey-wakey, Flyboy."

Nidhiki woke up with a jolt and realised that Lariska was standing in front of him, bent at the waist and peering into his face. She smirked and her red eyes glinted. "Howdy."

"What time is it?" he asked groggily. Nidhiki was not a morning person.

"Almost six. Get up." Lariska moved back and made no move to help the Toa up. She watched him with her eyebrows raised, her hip out, and her arms folded. "Message from the Shadowed One. You can have the city, but he has to be able to have a base, and if he asks for something, you have to give it to him. No choice, no questions asked, no delays. Just hand it over. Got it?"

Nidhiki grimaced. He should've known the Hunters would pull something like this. But if he didn't comply, he had the feeling that he might lose more than just the city. Like, say, his life. He sighed. "Got it."

Lariska grinned and gave him a mock bow. "Welcome to the Hunters, Nidhiki Cane."

Nidhiki didn't even bother asking how she knew his last name. "I'm not in the Hunters, though."

"Well, okay, but you're an ally of the Dark Hunters." Nidhiki felt a shiver run through him. It sounded so sinister, so...perfect.

He grinned. "Shall we plan?"

"Oh," she smirked, "we shall."

* * *

Dume raised his eyebrows in shock. "You know where the Dark Hunters are based?"

Nidhiki nodded gravely. "It's somewhere we would never expect, on the outskirts of Po-Metru."

"The farmland?" Dume asked. While most of Po-Metru was the business district of Metru Nui, the outskirts were mostly farmland. "You're right, we would never think to look there. How did you find them?"

"My friend lives on a farm out there. I was talking to him, and he said there was some strange activity going on near his farm." Nidhiki told the rehearsed lie with relative ease: how he flew out to investigate, found the Hunter's camp, and decided it would be better to get Lhikan and the Toa Metru before launching an attack. With each word, he felt the ball of guilt and worry clenched in his stomach lessen. Dume seemed to believe him, and the Toa Metru were hanging on his every word.

Lhikan, ever the hero, immediately began to take charge and talk battle strategy. Then came the tricky part—convincing everyone that a powerless Toa should accompany them to a battle. The plan wouldn't work if Lhikan stayed behind to guard Dume—Lariska was supposed to leave after the Toa had been ambushed and kill the Turaga. "It'd be easier to think up tactics and so on if you were actually there," he suggested. Eventually, Dume agreed, and Lhikan and Nidhiki led the Toa Metru towards Po-Metru.

Onewa was fuming so much, there was practically smoke coming out his ears. "Onewa?" Vakama asked. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he grumbled. "But Po-Metru's my homeland. To think some evil bastard set up camp there..." He cracked his knuckles as they stepped onto the subway. "They're gonna regret that."

Nidhiki barely contained the smirk that threatened to flash onto his face and ruin the whole plan. _Oh, I seriously doubt that,_ he thought.

They finally arrived on Po-Metru's outskirts after an hour on the subway and another twenty minutes on a bus. Nidhiki started to lead them to where the 'base' was when about a hundred Dark Hunters appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere, to surround the Toa. Lhikan instinctively threw up a shield and the Toa Metru assumed their Toa forms. Nidhiki shrugged and wandered over to Lariska, who was in the front row. "Hey," he grinned. He turned back to see Lhikan glaring at him. If he hadn't known better, he would've sworn that the former Toa had gotten his fire powers back, as he was practically burning up with anger. He happened to glance at the Toa Metru and immediately wished he hadn't. Matau had a look of pure hurt on his face. Nidhiki quickly looked back at Lhikan. "Sorry it had to end this way, brother," he said.

Lhikan shook his head. "Not half as sorry as I am. And never call me brother again." At that, he whistled loudly and shrilly.

From everywhere—windows in houses, hay lofts in barns, treetops, roofs, stacks of hay bales, farm equipment—Toa poured. They surrounded the Dark Hunters, who immediately dropped their weapons. There weren't as many Toa as there were Hunters—in fact the Hunters still outnumbered them two to one—but the Toa had the element of surprise, plus in order to escape, they'd have to fight their way through the Toa. And a good Toa is worth six in battle.

Nidhiki glanced sharply at Lariska, who was scowling. "Not bad," she said to him. "I can't believe we trusted you."

"Oh, your trust in him wasn't misplaced," Lhikan spat. "Ours, on the other hand, was."

The dark-haired man looked up at Lhikan. "How did you know?" he asked.

"Vakama ran into you earlier, said you were acting distracted. I went to find you to talk to you. When I found you, you were asleep next to the portable with the computer labs in it. I was going to go wake you up, but then Lariska beat me to it." He shook his head sadly. "I hid and heard your whole conversation. I warned Dume, and he managed to mobilize Toa from nearby cities to help us. Didn't have time to warn these guys, though," he admitted, indicating the Toa Metru.

"An ambush to ambush the ambush," Lariska commented, almost jauntily. "Well, well, well. Isn't that kind of devious for a Toa? I thought you guys were all about honour and all that crap."

Lhikan glared at Nidhiki again. "Most of us are." He raised his voice. "Since it goes against the Toa code to kill, you will all be allowed to leave the city with your lives and bodies intact on three conditions." He held up a finger. "One, you swear to never return here. A message has already been sent to the Shadowed One, and we have his reply in writing: as long as no blood is spilled today, he will keep his Dark Hunters out of the city. That means you lot." He held up a second finger. "Two, you leave immediately. I want all the Hunters out of Metru Nui and the surrounding area by midnight tonight. That's four hours from now." Taking a deep breath, he held up the third finger. "And three..." He lowered his hand and pointed at Nidhiki. "You take him with you," he spat.

Nidhiki was shocked. "Wh-what? Go with them? Lhikan, are you crazy?"

The look in Lhikan's eyes said "Don't try me." He shook his head. "No. Just go, Nidhiki."

"But we're brothers in arms!"

"No!" Lhikan snapped. "You lost the right to call me 'brother' the moment you even considered joining up with her—" he pointed to Lariska—"and her kind! You're not my brother. As far as I'm concerned, you don't even exist." He lowered his hand to his side, both hands clenched into fists as he stared at the ground, avoiding Nidhiki's eyes. "Now get out. Get out of my face, my city, and my life."

Nidhiki took one more look at his former brother, and at Matau, who was also looking at the ground as though it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. He took a step forward and Lhikan's head flashed up. "Get out!" he roared. "Get out before I kill you!"

* * *

The Dark Hunters were all gone within the hour. Lhikan oversaw their departure. Nokama, Onewa, Nuju, and Vakama all volunteered to help, but he made them leave. "I want to be alone," he said, his voice almost dead. Vakama understood. He'd just lost a brother. Nidhiki may not have died—but he was dead to Lhikan.

Whenua was comforting Matau when Vakama found them. Matau looked up at Vakama from his seat on the ground. "He was...he was the only Air Toa I knew," he mumbled. "I wanted to learn so much more from him...and he reminded me of Dad."

Vakama sat next to him and put an arm around his shoulders, like Whenua was doing. "I know," he said quietly.

Matau sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "It's not like what Lhikan's feeling, though," he muttered. "I mean, I just met the guy. He was Lhikan's brother. Well, not really, but you know."

They sat like that for a while until Nokama found them. "Dume wants us," she said. The three Toa stood up and followed her to the security office silently.

* * *

Lhikan stood at the back of the room. Even though there were seven other people crammed in there, Dume's office felt bare without Nidhiki. Every now and then, one of the others would glance back at him, then quickly look away again. Lhikan sighed. He knew he was supposed to support them—but what happened when the supporter needed support?

Dume finally finished his speech—which could be summed up by "We must redouble our efforts, nothing like this must ever happen again, et cetera"—and shooed the Toa Metru out of his office. Lhikan was about to follow when Dume called, "Lhikan, a word please."

Reluctantly, Lhikan turned and faced his Turaga. "Yes?"

Dume stood up, his old knees creaking, and walked to Lhikan. He regarded him silently for a moment, then reached out and gave his charge a hug.

Lhikan was shocked, to say the least. Dume rarely showed any affection towards anyone from what Lhikan had seen in all the years he'd know the man. Ever since Dume handed him a strangely glowing stone and declared him a hero ten years ago, pretty much the only side of him Lhikan had seen was the professional, almost stoic side. This was probably the first time he'd ever shown any tenderness. It wasn't like Dume was rude or cruel or anything—it was just the way he was.

"It's okay," Dume said quietly. "I miss him too."

Lhikan couldn't speak. He just hugged his mentor of ten long years back and cried for his lost brother.

* * *

**:(  
That is all.  
Thanks again for reading! See the pretty review button? Please click it!  
~Ed**


	8. Attack

**Hello there! Chapter 8 is up, as you can see.  
Just a note: this is the last chapter I actually have finished. I'm currently working on Chapter 9, but since I'm working on stuff for class, Rahi Warrior, Visitors, and the 100 Themes Challenge (which I should probably update...), I should probably work on the other stuff too. Rah.  
Also, if you like Metru Uni, let me know! Drop me a review or a PM. I also have started a poll on my profile asking if I should do a sequel with the Toa Mata/Nuva, since this ends at the end of the Visorak storyline. Please vote!  
Thanks for reading, and please review! Constructive criticism is always highly appreciated.  
*I don't own Bionicle, but I do own character designs, OC's, etc. You can use them if you ask first, though.***

Chapter 8: Attack

Three weeks went by in the city of Metru Nui.

Following up on Whenua's suggestion, weekly judo classes became part of the Toa Metru's training. They continued trying to work on their powers, too. Vakama managed to create a fireball without setting anything on fire, and Whenua learned what he called a 'Whenua Smash!' in which he pounded the ground, sending a wave of earth rippling towards his target. Nokama found she could hold her breath underwater for longer periods of time, and that being in the water helped make her stronger. Nuju was practically invisible in a blizzard, and he learned to use that to his advantage. Matau slowly started learning how to fly, and Onewa found that he had limited telekinetic powers over anything made of or containing stone.

Nothing 'evil' was happening, either, at least nothing they could help with. Of course, there were regular crimes like in most cities, but there was no sign of Dark Hunters cropping up anywhere or evil foliage attacking people and destroying buildings. They still didn't have any leads on the locations of the Great Disks, or 'Kanoka' as Dume called them, but Metru Nui wasn't in any immediate danger from the Morbuzakh, for which they were all grateful.

Things were progressing well until the museum.

"Hi, Kiina," Nokama sang, walking into their dorm room.

Kiina didn't even bother with their usual greeting and shoved a pamphlet in Nokama's face. Or at least Nokama assumed it was a pamphlet; it was so close to her it could have been an apricot for all she knew. "The Onu-Metru Archives have a new exhibit!" she squealed. "And get this! It's this weird stone tablet written in an ancient language that no one knows how to translate! We've gotta go see it!"

Nokama backed up a bit so that Kiina wasn't invading her personal space anymore. "What's all this?" she asked.

Kiina was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. "The Onu-Metru Archives, which is like this huge museum in Onu-Metru for the weird and unexplained, has this awesome-looking new exhibit from some temple somewhere in, like, Australia or something, and there's this weird text on it that no one's ever seen before carved on it. It sounds really cool, and the residence is organising a trip to go see it this weekend." She showed Nokama the pamphlet again.

The Toa of Water took the paper. On the front was a glossy photo of the tablet in question, and she could clearly see the circular letters. She gasped slightly as they seemed to rearrange themselves in front of her eyes, courtesy of her Rau power of translation. One of the words caught her eye: 'Kanoka.'

Her eyes widened. "You said the residence is arranging a trip this weekend?" she clarified, looking up at Kiina.

The blue-haired girl nodded. "Yeah, twenty bucks a person for transportation and admission. Sweet, right?"

Nokama nodded. "Definitely. Say...can I bring some friends?"

* * *

And that was how Matau found himself crammed on a bus with about five billion people he didn't know, heading for some boring museum to look at some equally boring artefact. Nokama had only had time to tell them that they absolutely had to go to this exhibit. She'd said something about Kanoka, too, but he hadn't really been paying attention. He'd been too busy killing aliens on his DS.

Lhikan was talking. Oh yeah—he and the other Toa Metru, plus Kiina, were all on this bus to Boredom Central too. "It's really lucky your roommate's so into ancient artefacts and stuff," Lhikan was telling Nokama, "otherwise we might not have seen it."

Nokama nodded. "Maybe it wasn't luck, though."

The former Toa nodded, and their conversation stopped there. Matau rolled his eyes. _Whoop-de-doo, we've found some big slab. I swear, if it says anything about one of us being the King of Games or something, I'll kill it. Kill it dead._

At the back of the bus, Vakama was trying very hard not to invade anyone's personal space, which is difficult when so many people are invading yours. He'd decided a long time ago that he hated Metru Nui's public transit, and yet here he was, on a bus, squashed between Whenua and some creepy old lady with more warts than teeth. Something on this bus smelled like pickles, and he couldn't wait to get off.

Finally, the automated voice said, "Next stop: Parker Avenue," and Lhikan called, "that's us," and pulled the 'stop request' cord. Vakama visibly relaxed. He hated crowds almost as much as he hated public transit. Or maybe he hated public transit because he hated crowds. Whatever the case, he was glad when the bus finally pulled to a stop and he could quietly get up and try to manoeuvre his way to the doors.

Suddenly the old woman's hand snapped out and grabbed his wrist. "Toa," she whispered. Vakama's heart rate tripled as his head whipped back to look at her. "Toa," she repeated. "Beware the Morbuzakh! When it knows you're looking for it...it comes looking for you."

Then she let go and sat back as if nothing unusual had happened. Vakama continued to stare until the driver called, "Hey, buddy, ya gettin' off or what?"

"What happened?" Whenua asked as his roommate stepped off the bus, looking shaken.

"N-nothing, Nua. Nothing at all."

Matau rolled his eyes. "You're cross-wired!" Everyone stared at him. "What?"

"What's 'cross-wired' mean?" Onewa asked.

"I don't know. Did I say that?"

"Guys, can we just go?" Lhikan asked nervously. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Thank you, Harrison Ford," Onewa sighed, hooking his arms around behind his head and leading the way to the museum.

It took them a little while to get to the room with the tablet, mostly because of the crowds. Apparently, everyone who was anyone wanted to see this giant rock. Vakama just hoped none of them wanted to see it for the wrong reasons. Another problem was the fact that Kiina kept running off to look at other 'cool-looking' exhibits and Nokama refused to go without her. "If this says what I think it says, this could be dangerous," she explained. "I don't want Kiina getting hurt."

Finally, they made it. But...

"I can't see!" Matau whined. He wasn't enthused about being there, but he figured if he had to be there anyway, he may as well see what they'd come to see. Sadly, though, there was a huge crowd surrounding it and it was practically impossible to see anything except the very top, which didn't even have any writing on it.

"We have to get closer," Nokama said.

"Hells yeah!" Kiina said. "I wanna see this thing!"

Whenua tried worming his way in, but it's difficult for a bulky, six-eight man to 'worm' anywhere. "We need a plan," he said.

Suddenly there was a scream from down the hall. Instinctively, the Toa and Lhikan went into a defensive position. "What was that?" Lhikan asked.

A woman wearing a security uniform charged into the room, wild-eyed and panicky. Vakama gulped. She was obviously a professional who dealt with serious situations daily. If she was panicking, something really bad was going down.

"Everyone run!" she screamed, not bothering to stop and continuing on into the next room. There was a pause. Then the worst possible thing happened.

With a crash, a giant plant tendril wormed its way into the room with a lot more success than Whenua had been having earlier. It was soon joined by another, and another, and another, until the entire wall fell down from so many vines crashing through it.

Naturally, everyone started screaming and running in the opposite direction. Vakama looked at Lhikan. "Lhikan, is that—?"

Staring in shock, Lhikan nodded. "The Morbuzakh."

"Morbuzakh? What's a Morbuzakh?" Kiina asked. "Nokama, come on! We've got to get out of here!"

"No, Kiina, you go! I'll catch up!"

"What? But—"

"Lhikan," Vakama said, "take Kiina and get out of here. We'll deal with this." Wordlessly, the former Toa nodded and grabbed Kiina's arm, dragging her not-so-wordlessly out of the room.

"Hey! What's going on? Nokama!"

Vakama turned to his team. "Nokama, you get translating the tablet. It may be our only chance. We'll cover you." With a nod, Nokama turned to the tablet, now free of people, and activated her Rau power. "Okay, guys," Vakama said, transforming. "We've got a weed to pull."

"Man," Matau grumbled, transforming as well, "I hate gardening."

Each Toa immediately went on the offensive. Matau jumped up for an aerial assault, while the rest stayed on the ground. Onewa and Whenua created a wall of dirt and stone in front of Nokama to help shield her. Nuju didn't bother holding back and froze as much of it as he could. And Vakama threw fireball after fireball—but it didn't seem to be working.

Panting, he fell back. _Why? Why aren't my attacks working?_ He looked around. Most of everyone else's attacks were getting through—why not his? Plants should be vulnerable to fire, right?

_I need something else,_ he thought. Almost in a daze, he reached out in front of him and 'pulled' on something. When he shook himself back to reality, he was holding a silver weapon of some kind. It looked like it was supposed to launch something...something round and flat, like a Frisbee. The sides were decorated with metal flames, though he suspected they were more for show than anything.

_Well, until I find out what I'm supposed to launch with this thing,_ he thought, hefting it up and running back to the battle, _it's a club._ He began smacking away at the Morbuzakh.

Nuju looked at him. "Where did you get that?"

"I don't know. I sort of reached out and it just...appeared. But that's not important right now. My flames don't work against this thing!" Then it dawned on him. "Of course! Nuju, fall back for a second!"

"But—"

"Come on!" Vakama dragged him behind Nokama's barrier.

Nokama looked surprised to see them. "What are you—?"

"No time to explain! How much is left?"

"About five lines."

"Perfect. Keep translating." He turned to Nuju. "Nuju, you're going to be our key player here. This thing is impervious to fire and heat, but that means it should be weak against cold. That's you. We'll cover you as best we can. Concentrate on freezing as much as you can, okay?"

Nuju nodded silently. As Vakama turned to go, the Ice Toa shook his head with a slight smile. Hard to believe that this was the same person who'd been so insecure the first time they'd met.

Vakama shouted to the others. "Guys, cover Nuju! Come on, everyone! Whenua, make sure the barrier's okay! Matau, watch out for that vine!" He swatted a tendril that got too close while Nuju created a mini-blizzard, driving the Morbuzakh back. One of the vines froze solid, and a swift kick from Onewa shattered it. Vakama grinned. They were winning!

Suddenly the vines stopped moving. The Toa Metru immediately went on the defensive, wary for any movements they might make. But instead of attacking, they slithered back into the next room and down through a hole in the floor.

Vakama breathed a sigh of relief. They'd won!

"All done!"

That was Nokama, stepping out from behind Whenua's barrier. She looked around at the damage they'd caused. "Wow, I pity whoever has to come up with a cover story for this. Where'd the Morbuzakh go?"

Matau shrugged. "It's away-gone. Who cares?"

"That's a ridiculous attitude," Nuju snapped as they transformed back to their 'regular' forms. "If we know where it went, we can know where to find it for future battles."

Vakama shook his head. "Right now, we should focus on getting the Kanoka." He tucked his new weapon under his arm. He'd ask Dume about it later. "Come on, let's get out of here."

They slipped past the police who were surrounding the building and made their way to the front, looking for Lhikan. A couple of police officers stopped Vakama. "What in the world is that?" one asked, pointing to his launcher.

"It's, uh, ah, it's a...metalworks project!" he blurted. There was something off about these officers, and it scared him. They looked rather...identical. Though to him, pretty much anyone in a uniform looked identical—even school uniforms. But it wasn't just the uniforms. They seemed too perfect, somehow. They waved him on his way, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Kiina came running up to them, wide-eyed. "What happened? Where were you? I don't understand—what's going on?"

"Kiina, calm down," Nokama said, taking her by the shoulders. "Where's Lhikan?"

"Lhikan is—Lhikan is—"

Vakama looked behind her and felt his heart drop into his stomach. There was a gaping hole in the middle of the street. "Kiina," he said, "did the vines take Lhikan?"

She nodded. "They just...they just grabbed him, I couldn't do anything, I just stood there and screamed and then he was gone..."

The Toa of Fire dropped to his knees, staring dazedly at the hole. "No...not when we...not when we'd just driven them away..."

A hand brushed his shoulder. "Vakama?" Nokama asked.

Everything suddenly went white. When he could see again, he was in some kind of forge. There was a small red robot watching as a gold-and-red robot was dragged away by some kind of insectoid robot and a hulking white and blue robot. "Be grateful," a voice said. Vakama whirled around, but no one was there. The voice sounded like an old man, and it was reverberating in his head. "Lhikan was able to teach you this time. The first time, he was captured even before our transformation."

Suddenly he was back in the present, kneeling on the ground, and everyone was looking at him. "Another vision?" Nokama asked quietly. He nodded.

Something about the voice was troubling him. It had said 'our transformation.' Who was he? Why was his voice in Vakama's vision?

Staggering to his feet, Vakama picked up his launcher. "Let's get out of here," he said.


	9. Seek

**OMGS this is late. But there was this big project which took precedence, so...  
On the bright side, it's really long. You know what Word says about its word count level?  
IT'S OVER 8000!  
Yeah. Nice and long.  
My favourite part is the last part. It was a lot of fun to write, because its tone is very different from the rest of the chapter.  
Next chapter may or may not come next week since I have yet _another_ big project due a week today. However, I'll still be posting 100 Themes Challenge oneshots, and hopefully a Visitors shot too. I don't know about Rahi Warrior since PB86 isn't in much shape to be writing (he just had his wisdom teeth taken out :C).  
Thanks for reading, and please review! Constructive criticism is always highly appreciated.  
*I don't own Bionicle, but I do own character designs, OC's, etc. You can use them if you ask first, though.***

Chapter 9: Seek

Dume looked over Vakama's strange new weapon. "It looks to be a Kanoka disk launcher," he confirmed. "I can supply you with a few disks from my collection, if you like."

"But I thought there were only six Kanoka."

"Six Great Kanoka, yes. But the others are fairly common, if you know where to look."

Vakama watched Dume rummage through a box he'd pulled out from under his desk. He had to say, the old man was taking the news of Lhikan's disappearance much better than he had—although it was hard to take it worse than Vakama had. Dume handed him ten large disks. "Here. I've given you mostly freeze disks, since, from what you've said, they'll be most effective against the Morbuzakh, but there are others in there as well. Each disk," he continued as Vakama opened his mouth to ask a question, "has a code. There are three numbers, each representing one thing. The first digit represents what district, or Metru, it was made in, and therefore what unique quality it has about it. For example, a Ga-Metru disk will move according to the thrower's thoughts, while an Onu-Metru disk will return to the thrower if it's diverted from its course. The second digit represents the power it has—1 is reconstitutes at random, 2 is freeze, and so on, up to 8 for teleporting. The last digit represents the power level, one being the weakest and nine being the strongest. There are only six known level nine disks—the Great Disks, which you must find." He started to shoo Vakama out, then stopped him. "Oh—your launcher can be pulled in and out of the 'pocket dimension' you retrieved it from, and the others have similar weapons as well—or they should in theory, anyway. Now out, I'm almost done here and I need my beauty sleep."

As soon as Vakama was gone and the door closed behind him, Dume swept the box on his lap onto the floor and pounded his desk with his fist. Lhikan was gone! He should've known it wouldn't last forever. He was lucky that they'd lasted out as long as they had. But that didn't change the fact that the young man he'd looked at as a son for the past ten years was gone, kidnapped, possibly dead. The Toa Metru had to get him back. They had to. Or he might just have to go and do it himself.

* * *

"Wait, so we all have weird weapon things in this other dimension thing?"

Vakama nodded. "That does seem to be the gist of it, yeah."

Matau grinned. "Awesome! What do I have?"

"Why're you asking me? Look, that's not important right now. Nokama, what did you find out?"

"Just a second." Nokama was scribbling what she'd translated from the tablet down onto a sheet of paper. "I'm almost done."

"Hey, guys, take a look at this," Whenua called from his room. All six Toa Metru were in his and Vakama's shared dorm room, and Whenua had the news on in his bedroom. The others poked their heads in. The banner across the bottom read "Freak explosion combined with gas leak causes severe hallucinations at museum."

Onewa stared. "Is that seriously the best they could come up with?"

"Considering that they covered up our battle with Bhek as a student film," Nuju said icily, "this shouldn't surprise anyone."

"Well, it's certainly calmed Kiina down," Nokama called from her spot at the kitchen table. "She loves the unknown and all, but I think the Morbuzakh is a little too much 'unknown' even for her. I'm done, by the way."

Everyone rushed to the kitchen table. "Well?" Vakama asked excitedly. The sooner they found the Kanoka, the sooner they could find out what happened to Lhikan.

"Um, well, it seems to be mostly...well, riddles." Nokama frowned at her notebook, like it was the cause of the problem. "It says, 'Those who seek the Kanoka, look for the unfamiliar within the familiar.'"

"Well what's that supposed to mean?" Matau asked grumpily. He'd never liked riddles.

"I don't know. But from what it says, there's one hidden in each Metru. Maybe it means that they're in places that could easily be overlooked?"

"Well, what else does it say?" Whenua asked. "Are there any more clues?"

"Yes, one for each Metru." She set the notebook down. "I have an idea. What say we split up into teams, and each team tackles two Metru each? That way, we'd always have backup, but we're not all trying to do everything."

Vakama nodded thoughtfully. "That would work. Okay, we'll flip a coin." He dug a quarter out of his pocket. "Matau, heads or tails?"

"Heads!"

The redhead flipped the coin and caught it. "Heads," he confirmed. "You get first pick of partner."

"Nokama!" he immediately proclaimed. Nokama rolled her eyes—she should've known he'd say that.

"Okay, are you okay with that, Nokama?" When she nodded, he turned to the other three. "Who wants to go next?"

Onewa shrugged. Whenua smiled and said, "I'll go with whoever." Nuju just looked at him.

Frowning, Vakama said, "Fine, Nuju, you pick. Call it in the air." And with that, he flipped it again.

"Heads."

He caught it and checked. "Yep. Pick someone."

Nuju took a lot longer to decide than Matau had. Finally, just when Vakama was losing his patience, he said, "Whenua."

"That leaves me and Onewa," Vakama said. "Perfect. We'll start looking tomorrow; it's getting late. Let's meet at three outside the gym. Nokama, could you bring your notebook again?" She nodded as everyone said their goodbyes and left, but hesitated on her way to the doorway. "Nokama?" Vakama asked when Whenua had gone into his room. "Is something wrong?"

"No, I just...it just feels like something really bad is about to happen. And you still haven't told us what happened in your last vision, Vakama."

He flinched. Hearing the old man's voice had disturbed him so much that he'd refused to talk about it, even when threatened with being strapped to a chair and forced to listen to Justin Beiber unless he spilled. "I-it was nothing. Really."

She gave him a concerned look, but didn't push the issue and nodded. "I see. Well, I'd better be going—my homework won't do itself, you know."

"If only, if only," Vakama sighed wistfully, and she laughed and left.

Vakama turned to see Whenua leaning in his doorway, frowning. "Is something wrong, Nua?"

"Dude, I gave you guys privacy and everything," Whenua lamented. "What does it take for you to get the hint and ask her out already?"

Vakama was confused. "Who?"

Whenua's frown evolved into a full-on scowl. "Come on, Vak, how many females have been in our room in the past five minutes?"

Then it dawned on him. "Oh, geez, Nua, no, I-I don't like Nokama! I mean, I do, she's a great friend and all, but I don't, you know, _like_ her; there's a difference between liking friends and liking girlfriends..." His face was red, he was sure of it.

A grin had broken out on Whenua's face. "What a suspiciously specific denial."

Doing a lovely impression of a surprised fish, Vakama snapped, "Sh-shut up!" and raced into his room, slamming the door. Whenua's grin just widened as he closed his own door.

* * *

"What. The hell. Is the point. Of this?"

Whenua sighed. "Nuju, you were the one who decided to partner up with me."

"My other options were a space case and an idiot. How was I supposed to know we wouldn't get along?"

"Maybe you should've seen it in the stars, Mister Big-Shot Astronomer!"

"I've told you, all that horoscope stuff is a lot of hooey. I'm an astronomer, not an astrologist."

Whenua sighed again. They'd only been in Onu-Metru for about fifteen minutes, and already they were getting testy. Maybe it had been a mistake to have them partner up. Whenua liked things from the past—Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, Beethoven, the original Star Wars trilogy, and the like—while Nuju preferred more modern things, like the Crash Test Dummies, Simon and Garfunkel (while they were old, they were still more modern than Beethoven), and James Patterson's _Women's Murder Club_ series. So far, they hadn't found anything they had in common—except their goal, the Onu-Metru Great Disk.

"What was the riddle Nokama said for Onu-Metru again?" Nuju asked. He remembered what it was, but he wanted to make conversation that wasn't the two of them snapping at each other.

"No door must be left unopened. And the place with the most doors, and thereby the most unexplored rooms, and the weirdest stuff, would have to be the Archives."

Nuju grimaced. He hadn't exactly enjoyed their last trip to that museum. Plus there was the fact that after the 'explosion' two days ago, there were probably police crawling all over it, meaning they'd have to sneak in somehow. Stealth was not Nuju's thing.

Nevertheless, they got off the bus in front of the Archives and sauntered towards the museum. Nuju had been right—there were police officers everywhere and the whole area was sectioned off with yellow tape that said "CRIME SCENE—DO NOT CROSS" in big black lettering all over it.

"Hey, you two!" Whenua turned to see a uniformed officer approaching them. "This is a crime scene; get out of here!"

Nuju wanted to snap that they knew it was a crime scene, it was hard to see the cops and the flashing lights and the tape and mistake it for a shoe sale. Whenua, on the other hand, tilted his head. "Officer Damek? Is that you?"

_Of course Whenua knows everyone in this stupid Metru,_ Nuju thought sarcastically, rolling his eyes. _Of bloody course he does._

Damek looked taken aback. "Whenua? Whenua Quake, is that you? Well, what're you doing here?"

Whenua had to invent a lie quickly. "Oh, I, uh, saw it on the news, and wanted to see what was happening for myself."

Damek shook his head with a grin. "You haven't changed since you were a kid, Whenua. Always playing detective, huh?" Whenua blushed and grinned. "Look, I wish I could tell you what you want to know, but it's highly classified. Sorry, kid." Nuju's mouth twitched into a smile. Whenua was easily a foot taller than this Damek person calling him 'kid.'

Suddenly another officer walked up to Damek. "Sir, we need to be getting back to the investigation."

Damek waved his hand. "I'll be right there, Rorzakh." Rorzakh nodded and walked off, his face emotionless, his walk stiff and slightly jerky. Whenua and Nuju watched him go. There was something 'off' about him. Damek sighed. "Since you're a family friend, Whenua, I'll tell you this. We've been getting these experimental law enforcement robots called Vahki to do grunt work for us. I don't know who invented them, but the orders came from higher-ups. That there was one of them. Sure are making our lives a bit easier, but they're kind of creepy, to tell the truth. Apparently, they won't stop pursuing a criminal until they've caught them. They do need a lot of recharging, though."

Whenua nodded thoughtfully. "I see. Thanks, Damek."

"That's classified info, though, so don't go spilling to anyone," he warned. "Now go on, get out of here before Sarge comes and busts you."

"That was useless," Nuju grumbled as they walked away. "How do you know that guy anyway?"

"He's my dad's best friend; they were in high school together. And it wasn't completely useless. We found out about the Vahki and how heavily guarded the Archives are, right?"

"True. But we're still no closer to the Kanoka than before."

At that, Whenua grinned again. "Don't worry about it. I have a plan."

* * *

"This was a stupid idea."

"It was your idea."

Vakama and Onewa, who were on the other side of the city, in Ta-Metru, were having even less luck than Whenua and Nuju. Not only did they not get along, they had absolutely no idea what Ta-Metru's clue, "embrace the root of the fire," was supposed to mean. They'd been searching Vakama's home Metru for almost an hour, with no clues, no success, no nothing. And the fact that Onewa wasn't thrilled about being paired up with a cross-wired freak (he'd taken to calling Vakama that after Matau's little outburst the other day) and running around in a district that was so hot it never saw snow, even in the dead of winter, didn't help much either.

Currently, they were going to the warmest places in Ta-Metru, trying to figure out which was the 'root of the fire.' They'd been to the saunas and so on near the center of town, and were currently heading more towards the outskirts in search of the different forges. Ta-Metru was mostly made up of factories and forges—things to do with heat, which was one of the reasons why it was so hot. So far, they'd had absolutely no luck.

Vakama sighed. "Look, Onewa, I haven't got a clue what we're supposed to be looking for, so—"

"Oh, your fancy visions haven't told you anything?" Onewa snapped. He was hot, and when he got hot, he got irritable.

The Fire Toa winced. "I can't just turn them on and off, you know. If I could, I wouldn't have them at all!"

"Awww, geez, someone call the waaaambulance!"

"Look, we're supposed to be working together on this!"

"I know that!"

"Then stop acting like a spoiled brat and start acting like a mature adult!"

"Tsk tsk tsk. Toa, arguing?"

Both Onewa and Vakama whirled to see who had spoken, and Vakama gasped.

It was the old woman from the bus the other day.

* * *

"Aachoo!"

Nokama shook her head with a slight smile. "Matau, you've never been to Ga-Metru before, have you?"

"Not in fall," he admitted, rubbing his bare arms. "I came in summer for a beach trip once..."

"Well, it's pretty chilly here in fall because of all the water," she said, indicating around them. Ga-Metru was similar to Venice, in that most of the streets were canals, but there were a lot of walking paths. There were almost no cars in Ga-Metru, making it one of the least polluted areas of the city. Most of the buildings were schools and hospitals—Ga-Metru was the more academic sector of Metru Nui. "You should've dressed for the weather anyway; it is October after all."

"Ha! A Toa-hero never worries about the weather!"

"You did it again," she said, walking away.

"Did what?" he asked, jogging to catch up.

"The mixing words thing. Usually, you only do that as a Toa. Why're you doing it now?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. It's kinda fun, actually. I mean, it's no different from don't or can't."

"Don't and can't are short forms, 'Toa-hero' is just longer and sounds silly."

Matau pouted, but for once didn't push the issue. "So where do you think we'll find the disk?"

"Well, Ga-Metru's clue was "go beyond the depths of Toa before," so I'm guessing it's underwater somewhere. The question is, where? Half of the Metru is underwater!"

"Nokama!"

The two Toa turned to see a teenage girl coming up the street waving at them. Nokama brightened. "Vhisola! Hi!" she called back.

Vhisola reached them and hugged Nokama. She was a little shorter than Nokama, with short blonde hair pulled into scruffy pigtails and her dark blue eyes were practically sparkling. She, at least, was prepared for fall, wearing a turtleneck and jeans.

"Nokama, what're you doing here?" she asked, pulling out of the hug. "It's only Monday; shouldn't you be at college?"

"Oh, uh, I just felt like seeing the old stomping grounds," Nokama lied. "Vhisola, this is Matau. Matau, this is my best friend Vhisola."

Vhisola blushed but looked pleased at being called Nokama's best friend. She stuck out her hand. "Nice to meet you, Matau."

Matau grinned at her as he shook her hand. "Ever-nice to meet you, Vhisola!"

Vhisola looked at Nokama, who shrugged. "He does that. Listen, Vhisola, you haven't seen a disk about the size of an average Frisbee on one of your diving expeditions, have you?"

"Diving expeditions?" Matau asked.

"I take diving lessons in the canals," Vhisola explained. "I want to find out how Metru Nui was made. It's not a volcanic island, but no one knows what it could be. To answer your question, Nokama, I don't think I have. But I'll be sure to keep an eye out for it."

"Thanks, Vhisola," Nokama sighed.

"Is it valuable or something?"

"Er, only to me," she laughed.

They bade Vhisola goodbye and continued on their search.

* * *

"I'm not wearing it."

"Oh, come on, Nuju! Please?"

"No. I don't care if we're supposed to look like press, nobody wears fedoras with the word 'PRESS' on a piece of paper stuck in it anymore! What is this, the 1920's?"

Whenua pouted. "Fine, I'll wear it."

"Whenua, we should be worrying about press badges, not headgear."

He waved his hand as though waving the concern away. "Got it covered. Here." He handed Nuju a very professional-looking press badge.

"When the hell did you have the time to make these?"

"While you were griping about the fedora. Now come on, we'd better get back to the Archives. Oh, and make sure we avoid Officer Damek."

They went to the first entrance they saw and presented their badges to the Vahki standing guard there. It glanced at them and droned "You may pass" in a monotone voice.

"Whoever made those needed to give them emotions," Whenua muttered.

"That wouldn't have been practical. Their only 'emotion' is a desire for justice, making them the perfect law enforcement," Nuju explained.

"And you know this how?"

"I'm too smart for my own good. Now, how do we find this disk?"

Still gaping over the fact that Nuju had actually made a joke, Whenua missed the last part. "Come again?"

"The disk. Find it. How."

"Uh..." He grinned sheepishly. "I...didn't quite get that far."

"You're lucky I'm from Ko-Metru."

"Meaning?"

"We think ahead. Come on."

"Can I help you two?"

The duo turned to see a young man wearing a dress shirt, pressed pants, and red suspenders behind them. His name tag identified him as "Tehutti, Archivist."

Whenua flashed a grin. "We're looking for something. You think you can help us?"

Tehutti's eyes narrowed. "That depends. What are you looking for?"

"It's a disk, about yay big." He indicated with his arms. "Seen it?"

The Archivist looked thoughtful. "A disk, you say? Well...maybe. I can't say for sure. Why do you want it?"

Whenua looked at Nuju, who shrugged. They couldn't very well just say, "We need it to save the city from evil foliage" without Tehutti thinking they were insane and/or calling for the Vahki. "We need it because...because, well, it's important." Nuju rolled his eyes. _Brilliant, _he thought.

Tehutti narrowed his eyes even further. "I don't think I can trust you. Either tell me what you need this artefact for, or I'm getting the police in here."

Whenua and Nuju looked at each other again, stuck. It was then that the Morbuzakh decided to make its reappearance.

With a crash, it broke through the floor. Nuju immediately froze it solid.

Then he turned to Tehutti, who was staring at it with wide eyes. "We need the disk to stop that thing," he said. "Permanently."

"It wasn't a dream," Tehutti whispered, still staring. Then he frowned and nodded. "I'll take you to where I saw the disk."

* * *

"Y-you!" Vakama shouted, pointing.

"Yes, yes, we all know it's me," she sighed. "So, Toa, did the Morbuzakh find you?"

Vakama nodded. "Who are you, exactly?"

Something stirred at the back of his mind. _Be careful, Vakama,_ a voice said. He shuddered slightly as he recognised it as the voice from his last vision. _I do not know her._

She smiled. "I'm no one to worry about. My name is Arisa. I am a Matoran from Ga-Metru."

"Y-you're a Matoran?" Onewa stuttered.

Arisa turned away. "Follow me, and I can help you find the disk." She started to walk away, and Onewa started to follow her.

"Wait, where are you going?" Vakama hissed.

"Look, she's our best and only lead so far, so if you want to find the disks and save the city, we're going to have to trust her." Onewa went back to following Arisa.

Vakama debated. The voice in his head said not to trust her—but how could he know for sure whether it was malevolent or not?

Pushing aside his doubts, he jogged off to catch up with them.

Half an hour later, they reached the industrial area of Ta-Metru. Onewa wasn't impressed. "Big deal, we were coming here anyway."

Arisa had a twinkle in her eye. "Ah, yes, you were going to search each and every one of the forges until you found the Kanoka, is that right?"

Onewa blushed. "No! We totally had a plan!"

"Mm-hm. Well, here's a faster way." She whistled, and from behind a building came a rather familiar figure.

"Nuhrii!" Vakama yelped.

Nuhrii looked shocked to see Vakama, as well. He turned to Arisa. "I thought you said I was going to help Toa," he said. "But this is Vakama! I know him; he's not a Toa! He's not even a Matoran!"

"Friend of yours, Vakama?" Onewa asked.

"Nuhrii was my tutor when I was in grade seven and eight," Vakama explained. "I really struggled with French and math."

"Nuhrii, Vakama is a Toa," Arisa said calmly. "The Toa Metru of Fire, to be exact."

Nuhrii looked back at them and frowned. "Fine," he said. "Come on, Toa. I know where the disk is."

* * *

Vhisola loved to swim. Most Ga-Metru residents did; it came from being surrounded by water all the time, she supposed. But during today's diving class, she made sure to keep an eye open for Nokama's disk. She wasn't expecting to find it or anything, but it didn't hurt to look.

Her underwater light glinted off something metal. She passed the light over it again. Sure enough, it glinted again. Breaking away from the group, she swam closer. There it was: a metal disk, a bit bigger than her head. There was some strange blue pattern on it and it was stuck between two pointed rocks. Adjusting the air tank on her back, she tugged on it until it finally came free.

It was then that she realised that they weren't rocks. They were teeth.

For some reason, all she could think was _Well damn, apparently Jaws lives below Metru Nui._

Then she turned tail and swam for her life as the huge fish began the chase. She would've screamed if she hadn't been breathing with the assistance of an air tank. Vhisola barrelled towards her classmates, trying to warn them. They noticed really quickly—it's hard not to notice a giant fish with huge teeth swimming towards you—and booked it out of the canal. Vhisola started to scramble out, but she dropped Nokama's disk in the process. But she was safe. That was okay. They could go back and get it later, when the fish was gone. She went to get her things and change. Once she was in normal clothes again, she could find Nokama and warn her about Fish Face.

* * *

"It's around here somewhere," Tehutti muttered, peeking down a dark hallway. "It's in one of these storage rooms; I just can't remember which."

"Great," Whenua said, cracking his knuckles. "So we just open doors until we find it. No problem."

"Yes problem. We're not supposed to tell people this, but you guys did save me from that big plant thing, so..." Tehutti took a deep breath. "See, this is the area where we put the more, ah, interesting exhibits."

"You mean the most dangerous," Nuju translated bluntly.

He nodded reluctantly. "Even I don't know exactly what's behind some of these doors. Some are fairly harmless, but we did find one or two, uh..."

"Monsters?" Whenua supplied. "There was a rumour going around about that at one point."

"I don't know if 'monsters' is the right term, but for lack of a better one, yes. Be careful."

Whenua nodded. "Thanks, Tehutti. You'd better get out of here; we don't want you getting hurt."

Tehutti kept his gaze firmly trained on the floor as he nodded. "Right. Good luck. And don't worry, I won't tell anyone." He hurried off.

"What was he doing in here in the first place?" Nuju asked as they walked to the first door.

"Who knows? Cataloguing something, I guess. You ready?"

Nuju transformed to Toa form. "Bring it on."

Also transforming, Whenua pulled on the door handle...

And nothing happened.

He grinned sheepishly down at his comrade. "It's stuck. Just a second." A couple more tugs, and it was open.

A deep, loud roar greeted them. Nuju's eyes widened. "Close the door, close the door!"

Whenua slammed it shut. They heard something thud into it, and knew that if Whenua hadn't closed it when he did, whatever it was that was in there would be out here now.

Whenua sighed. "One door down...sixty-five billion to go."

"We certainly have our work cut out for us," Nuju grumbled, already heading for the next door.

* * *

When Lhikan and Dume had told the group that basically they were going to be superheroes, walking down the streets of Ta-Metru with a socially awkward birdbrain and a grouchy mostly-silent tutor to find a magic Frisbee so they could stop a marauding plant had not been one of the first things to do that had come into Onewa's mind. In fact, it was probably last on the list, right down there with having a dancing contest with a giant squid and Harry Potter. And yet here he was, following the two Ta-Metru natives and hoping at least one of them knew where they were going.

That seemed to be Nuhrii's department, as Vakama was following along behind him and making no attempts to be useful at all. Neither of them was trying to make conversation, either. Nuhrii had said literally five words the entire time. He was worse than Nuju in that regard—even the icicle talked occasionally!

"So," Onewa said, trying to break the awkward silence, "you guys know each other pretty well, then?"

Nuhrii glanced back at Vakama. "I thought we did."

Vakama winced. "Look, Nuhrii, I wasn't a Toa at the time. I couldn't have told you! Were you a Matoran back then, too?"

"Yeah, but, well...a lot of people, out of the ones who _do_ know we exist, anyway, think we're some weirdo religion that sacrifices stuff to Mata Nui—which we don't do, by the way—so most Matoran don't really advertise the fact that they are Matoran. Besides, you wouldn't have believed me anyway."

Vakama didn't say anything. "What, so you're going to let this stuck-up tutor guy just walk all over you?" Onewa asked him. "Dude, you're a Toa! Have some backbone already!"

"Oh, shut up."

"Sure, you can tell _me_ to shut up, but not this brat."

Nuhrii glared at him. "Do you want to find this disk or not?"

"I do, but I could do without your attitude!"

"Both of you shut up!" Vakama snapped. "We're getting nowhere with this pointless fighting! Nuhrii, just take us to the forge with the disk and let's get out of here already. We do have another one to find, you know."

"Fine. Because we're here."

Nuhrii had stopped in front of a large factory. It was nothing pretty to look at, mostly smooth concrete and smokestacks. A sign on the front proclaimed it was the "Ta-Metru Meltdown Center."

Vakama looked at Nuhrii. "It's in here?"

"Yeah," Nuhrii snorted. "The thing was slated to be melted down—"

"_WHAT?_" both Toa screeched.

"Calm down, calm down! I said 'was' slated. The thing is, they couldn't figure out how to melt it, so they're trying to study it to find out what it's made of. It's their pride and joy—good luck getting them to hand it over."

Vakama looked at Onewa, who shrugged. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," he said, hooking his arms behind his head and sauntering right on in.

* * *

"Nokama, are you alright?"

"What?" she asked, looking up at Matau.

"I said, are you alright? You look upset-down."

Not even bothering to comment on his double-words, she sighed. "I'm fine. Just kind of worried about Vhisola. She knows about the Kanoka—she could be in danger!"

"I'm sure she'll be alright-fine, Nokama. No worry-problem!"

Whirling, she grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking him. "Stop doing that! I know it's just to annoy me now, isn't it?"

"Nokama!"

_Déjà vu,_ Matau thought, since it was the only thought his rattled brain could produce when he saw Vhisola running towards them.

"Vhisola!" Nokama cried, running towards her friend. "Are you alright? What happened?"

"There was this giant fish and I had the disk but then I dropped it and now there's this evil fish thing—"

"Where? Vhisola, where did you see this?"

"I-in the canals, while I was diving."

"And they just let you go without having the police question you first?" Matau asked.

"N-no, the police are there now."

"Which means they've probably got the area surrounded," Matau sighed. "Happy-joy."

* * *

"Why is it that every single time we open a door in here, something tries to kill us?" Nuju asked.

"Because it's...because...oh, I don't know. Because some idiot decided that a museum was a good place for potentially homicidal circus freaks. That's why."

"That's actually pretty plausible," Nuju sighed. "Next door, then."

Whenua opened the door slightly and listened. "I don't hear anything. Let's go in."

Nuju scowled. So far, they'd had to deal with a kappa, an angry yellow toad, a giant crab, and a pack of psychotic monkeys with laser eyes. Laser eyes. Mother Nature was a bitch. But he followed the Earth Toa into the room anyway.

It was silent and dark. "Whenua, can you see anything?" Nuju asked. Or at least, that was what he tried to ask. His mouth moved, and he felt himself making the noise, but there was no sound coming out. He squinted, but he still couldn't see anything. He lifted his eyepatch to see if that would help. He wasn't quite sure why he had one—as far as he knew, his left eye still worked.

Suddenly his vision telescoped about a hundred times and he was looking in great detail at the pores on Whenua's face. With a soundless yelp, he stumbled back and fell on his rear, dropping his eyepatch back on his face in the process. With it back in place, everything went back to normal—as in, everything was pitch dark again.

Rough hands helped him up, and he nodded, even though he figured Whenua couldn't see him. Suddenly it was bright in the room, and Nuju gave another soundless yell as his eyes burned from the sudden light. When he adjusted, he saw that there were glowing white bats lining the walls and ceiling of the room. They looked at them with beady eyes, and the Toa wisely decided to beat it.

"That was...weird," Nuju commented when they were outside.

"My guess is that they eat sound or something," Whenua said. "In any case, there was no disk in there. Let's go."

"Just a second." Nuju lifted his eyepatch again, this time ready for the zoom-in effect it had. That didn't make it any less weird that he apparently had built-in binoculars. Maybe it was something to do with the way the original Nuju was. It seemed weird that he was a human telescope because he was the reincarnation of an alien robot, but at this point Nuju was willing to believe anything.

"Nuju, you okay?" Whenua asked.

"Yeah," he said, dropping his patch back in place. "Next room."

They opened the door and stepped inside. Taking three steps, Nuju suddenly dropped through a well-disguised hole in the floor. "Nuju!" Whenua yelled, dropping to his knees at the edge of the hole. "Nuju!"

"I'm right here, idiot," Nuju called back up, rubbing his sore butt from where he'd landed. He was lucky he hadn't fractured his tailbone or something. "I'm fine."

"Oh, good," Whenua said, relieved. "Do you see any way back up?"

Looking around, Nuju's gaze happened to rest on something near the back of his pit. "No, but I think I've found the disk."

"Seriously? Awesome! Wait there, I'll—"

A sudden growl cut him off. Nuju turned slowly to see what looked to be a large saber-toothed tiger emerge from the shadows at the back of the pit. Gulping, Nuju backed towards the disk. "Whenua," he called, "we have a problem."

* * *

Vakama walked up to the bored-looking receptionist. "Hello, welcome to the Ta-Metru Meltdown Center, where we melt down whatever you need and make it back into raw materials, how can I help you?" she droned.

Glancing back at Onewa and Nuhrii, he stuttered, "Um, we're looking for a disk. It's about this big and has a red pattern on it."

She immediately looked more interested. "Oh, is that thing yours? They've been trying to figure it out for, like, _ever_, and nothing they do does anything to it! I'll tell them you're here; maybe _you_ can tell them what they need to know!"

"No, I..." But she was gone. Helplessly, he turned back to his comerades. Onewa was smirking and Nuhrii was shaking his head. "Well, I didn't see you two coming up with any bright ideas!"

"How're we getting out of this one, Fearless Leader?" Onewa asked.

"Stop calling me that. We'll just have to wing it, I guess."

"Says the one who needed a drama tutor as well as me," Nuhrii said.

"Do you have a better plan?"

The receptionist came back in. "They said to come on in," she said, indicating the door behind her. The three of them filed in and were greeted by a group of people in lab coats and protective gear. One turned to face them.

"Ah, you're the lad who this belongs to?" he asked Vakama, holding up a disk that looked a lot like the ones Dume had given Vakama the day before.

"Y-yes, sir, that's mine."

Onewa sighed. He wanted to get out of there. It was getting late and he was hungry, never a good combination.

"Well, maybe _you_ can tell us what it's made of," he said. "We've been trying to figure it out for months! We can't melt it, break it, bend it, scratch it, or anything! It remains undestroyable."

"You mean indestructible," Nuhrii said. Onewa looked at him. "What? I'm a tutor. It's my job to know stuff like this."

"I...I don't know what it's made from," Vakama admitted. "I, uh, found it, in a, um, junk pile."

The scientist looked like he was about to ask something else, when a loud crash assaulted their ears. A bunch of people in protective gear ran out of another room and into the room they were in. "What's going on here?" one of the scientists demanded.

"There's some weird kind of plant thing in there!" one shouted as they trampled out of the building. "Everyone out! It's attacking everything in sight!"

Onewa and Vakama looked at each other. "Morbuzakh," they whispered. Simultaniously, they ran for the door all the workers were coming out. "What are you kids doing?" one scientist called.

"Saving your sorry asses," Onewa called.

"What are you—kids? Kids!"

* * *

"How're we going to get in there?" Nokama asked, peeking around the edge of the building they were hiding behind. "There are police everywhere!"

"Easy. I make a distraction, you go for the disk!"

"Not going to work, Matau. Whatever distraction you create couldn't possibly be enough to get the entire squad after you."

"First explosions at the Archives, then giant fish in Ga-Metru," Vhisola muttered. "What's next, robot policemen?"

"Look, we've got to get in there somehow. Any plans?"

"How about—"

"Any plans that don't involve being unnecessarily complicated?"

"What could be simpler than the element of surprise? We can be all like, 'we're here!' and they'll be all, 'oh no you di-ent,' and we'll be all—"

"I'm going to stop this before it gets too far. If you have a plan, Matau, just say so."

He grinned. "With pleasure. I tell the cops the fish has been spotted elsewhere, Vhisola says something convincing to back me up, and we lead them off while Nokama gets the disk. Easy peasy!"

Nokama sighed. "I don't think it'll work, but it's the only plan we've got. Can you do it, Vhisola?"

She nodded. "I can try. Let's go."

"Heeeeeey!" Matau yelled, running towards the police officers. Nokama couldn't hear the rest since they were too far away, but it seemed to work. In a flash, everyone had packed up and were following Matau and Vhisola away from the disk.

Making sure no one saw her, Nokama hurried over to the canal and slipped in, not caring that her clothes were getting wet. Taking a breath, she ducked underwater, looking for the disk. She'd perfected the art of swimming with her eyes open at an early age, and couldn't help but wonder if that was because of her destiny. Shaking those thoughts off, she scanned the ground. There it was! She darted towards it and scooped it up.

Then she felt a disturbance of some kind in the water, and looked behind her to see a fat, angry fish with teeth bigger than she was barrelling towards her.

* * *

"Crap! Nuju, what's going on down there?"

Nuju ignored Whenua until he dropped down into the hole as well. The big cat growled at the new intruder, who froze. "Uh, nice kitty," Whenua said.

Rolling his eyes, Nuju muttered to his teammate, "We need to get that disk and get out of here."

"I know," Whenua hissed back. "I'll keep Hobbes here busy. You get the disk!"

"No, you get the disk and create an escape route. I'll handle, uh, 'Hobbes.' Go on!" He shoved Whenua back just as the tiger leapt towards them. Nuju created an ice shield. It wouldn't hold forever, but it might just hold long enough for them to escape.

No such luck. Just as Whenua laid a hand on the disk, Tigger's ugly cousin broke through the ice and pinned Nuju to the ground. With a yell, Nuju froze its mouth shut, and it leapt up, trying to shake it off. It smashed its muzzle on a wall, breaking the ice, and crouched, snarling at Nuju.

"Nuju, come on!" Glancing over his shoulder, Nuju saw that Whenua had created crude earthen stairs and was halfway up them. Sending another blast of ice at the cat to ward it off, Nuju ran for the stairs and was partway up when a yowl made his blood run cold. The tiger was following them up!

"Get over here!" Whenua yelled, almost at the door. Nuju scrambled the rest of the way up and ran for his life. Once they were out, Whenua slammed the door shut and, just for good measure, they created a seal around the edges of earth and ice. Then they slumped to the ground, relieved just to be alive. Whenua held up the disk.

"One down," he said breathlessly.

Nuju stood up. "Let's get out of here," he said, already heading for the exit. "I've had enough Kanoka hunting for one day."

* * *

The first thing Vakama noticed was the heat. It was ridiculously hot in there. Granted it was a place for melting down metals, but it was still way hotter than he'd expected. The second thing he noticed was that the Morbuzakh was about to throw a ceiling support beam at them. "Run!" he shouted at Onewa.

"Great plan, chief!" he shouted, diving to the side as the beam slammed into the wall behind them, putting a nice dent in it. He started creating boulders and directing them at the vines, but that was doing more harm than good, since they just deftly moved out of the way.

"It's working better than yours," Vakama shot back, grabbing his launcher and a random disk from what Matau was calling 'hammerspace.' "Let's hope this works," he muttered, launching it at the bases of the vines, which weren't moving around all that much.

Sure enough, the disk struck home. Vakama expected it to freeze solid, but instead it started thrashing and glowing, emitting small sparks of energy.

Onewa rejoined him. "What the hell did you do?"

"Seven freeze disks," Vakama growled, "and I just _had_ to grab the only reconstitutes at random disk!"

They looked away as it transformed—the sight was really disgusting—and when they looked back, it was a blackened and twisted vine with spikes coming out of it. It looked like a charred, giant, angry rose stem.

"Good job, Fearless Leader," Onewa said. "You've managed to make it worse."

"Wait. Maybe it's vulnerable to fire now." Vakama threw a fireball at one of the vines, which, instead of absorbing it like usual, burned up and died. The other vines abruptly stopped moving, then seemed to go on the defensive.

"Not bad, kid."

"I'm only two years younger than you; don't call me kid."

"Whatever. Keep it busy, I have a plan."

Before Vakama asked what the plan was, Onewa was off like a shot, running up the stairs to their right to some kind of walkway. Vakama couldn't tell what he was doing, and he didn't much care at the moment. He had other things to deal with—like a charred, giant, angry rose stem. He contented himself with throwing fireballs at it, hoping Onewa knew what he was doing.

Onewa, for his part, was hoping the same thing. He'd found a giant pot of what looked like molten iron, and was trying to find something to use to push it onto the Morbuzakh. Finding a stirring stick of some kind, he used it to push the pot—

And it fell, spinning and dropping its contents all over the vines. They withered under the intense head, and when Onewa came back down, they lay dead on the ground.

Panting from the effort of using all those fireballs, Vakama grinned at him. "Not bad, kid."

Pretending to be offended, Onewa scoffed. "I'm two years older than you; don't call me kid."

"We've got one disk; let's get out of here." He went back through the door, ignoring the stunned scientists, picked up the disk, smiled, and said, "Later." Onewa grinned and followed, Nuhrii bringing up the rear for once. He was going to go home and relax after a job well done.

* * *

Her eyes widening, Nokama swam for the edge and hauled herself out of the water just as giant fishy jaws clamped shut where she'd been ten seconds before. Her clothes were soaked, but that wasn't the problem. She couldn't just leave this fish here where innocent swimmers or boaters could get killed by it. No, she had to do something. But what?

"Heeey, Nokama!"

Looking up, she relaxed when she saw it was Matau and Vhisola. Matau grinned at her when they reached her. "They're looking closer to the middle of town. Hopefully they'll stay there until—" Then he noticed the disk next to her. "You got the Kanoka! You're awesome, Nokama!"

"Thanks, but we've got to do something about Jaws here."

"Why don't we lure it out to sea?" Vhisola suggested.

"We live on an island in the middle of a lake. It would just go into the lake and not make it to the ocean. Besides, it's a freshwater creature, and probably couldn't survive in salt water."

"Since when do you know so much about water animals?" Matau asked.

"I did a research project in science class in grade ten, but that's not important right now. We've got to do something about it."

"We could lure it to dry land," Vhisola said. "It'd die, and the problem would be solved."

Nokama bit her lip. According to Dume's 'Toa 101,' it was against the Toa code to kill a sentient creature, but it was a fish, and it was extremely dangerous. Besides, it was their only plan. "Okay, I have an idea. But Vhisola, you should go home."

"No! I can't just leave now. I'm in the middle of this as it is! You've got to let me stay!"

"Vhisola, I can't. You have to go. You're getting tangled up in something you shouldn't be a part of, and it's my fault. I can't let you get too much further in. Please."

Eventually, Vhisola agreed, and Nokama explained her plan to Matau. "I don't like it," he said. "Getting back in the water when we know the fish is in there? Too dangerous."

"I suppose you have another idea? No? Then don't worry about it. Besides, you're going to be the one in the water."

"What? No, no way!" Not giving him a chance to argue, Nokama shoved him in and waited.

"I don't suppose this is a good time to tell you that I can't swim?" he yelled up, clinging to the edge.

"You're surviving. Oh, look, here it comes."

"Nooooo! Do it do it do it nooow!"

Nokama concentrated. She'd never done something like this before and she desperately hoped it would work. When the fish was where she wanted it, she removed all the water from within a three foot radius around it, holding it in the air above it. The effort it took to do so was tremendous, because she had to keep the rest of the canal from rushing in to fill the gap, too, and she hoped Jaws would die quickly so she could drop the water again.

Matau, for his part, moved along the edge until he was near the dry area, then dropped down and cautiously approached the fish. It wasn't moving, and he tried heaving it up. It didn't budge. "I think it's dead, Nokama," he called. "You can drop the water now."

Relieved, she did so and sank to the ground. Matau remembered too late that he couldn't swim, and didn't have time to take a breath before water engulfed both him and the fish. Thankfully, the fish stayed dead, but Matau couldn't figure out how to kick his feet to get out. He was going to drown.

Then strong arms were around him, pulling him along, and suddenly he was above the water, coughing and choking and _breathing_.

"Air!" he croaked once he had his voice back. "Glorious air!"

Nokama, who was pulling him to shore, smiled. "Let's get back to campus. It's getting late, and the police can find the fish later."

Once they were on dry land, Matau shook himself off. "You know, I think you should've tried to resuscitate me," he told her.

"Why would I do that?" she asked, walking off. He followed, pouting playfully as she grinned at him.

* * *

"Ugh..." The blonde groaned as he sat up. _Where am I?_ he thought. _I was at the Archives with the Toa Metru...and then the Morbuzakh came..._

"Oh, you're up."

Lhikan jumped at the slightly familiar voice. "Who's there?" he called, looking around. He was in some kind of dark cell. On the other side of the bar door was a backlit figure.

"Oh, Lhikan, surely you aren't that stupid," the figure hissed. One arm reached out and flicked a switch. Light flooded the room and Lhikan shielded his eyes. When he could see again, he gasped.

The person in front of him had messy dark hair that hung into his bi-coloured eyes. One was green while the other was bright yellow with blackened veins leading out from it. His ears were pointed, as were the teeth he bared at Lhikan. He was wearing a green shirt that had had the sleeves ripped off and the bottom torn slightly, as though it had been longer, like a tunic. But the strangest part was the fact that he had an extra pair of arms protruding from his sides. The top set of arms had brown bandages wrapped around the forearms, while the bottom two had green gloves attached only to the middle finger. The young man sneered at Lhikan. "I know I looked very different the last time we met," he growled, "but I'd expect that my own brother, at least, would recognise me!"

Clapping a hand over his mouth so he wouldn't scream, Lhikan scrambled away until he hit the opposite wall. "Nid...Nidhiki, is that you?" he whispered.

"Of course it's me!" Nidhiki snarled. "Who did you think it was, the Easter Bunny?"

"What happened?"

"That Shadowed Dork got pissed and had one of his potential recruits mutate me to see if she had what it took. And I was all too happy to take the assignment that would bring destruction to Metru Nui. If I can't have it, no one can."

"Who hired you? Why? What connection does it have to the Morbuzakh?"

Nidhiki smiled down at his captive brother. "I can't tell you, because then you'd try to stop it. And while you don't pose any threat in here, I know the Toa Metru just as well as you do, and they're going to try and rescue you. If you know our secrets, you can leak them, and that's not going to happen." He chuckled. "Well, I'm off. Places to go, Toa to kill, you know how it is."

"Nidhiki, no!" Lhikan yelled as the Hunter turned away. "Please, it doesn't have to be like this!"

"Yes it does!" Nidhiki roared, whirling back. "It's had to be this way ever since you cheated me out of my city, forced me to leave my home!"

"But that was because you'd betrayed everyone you knew and loved!"

"I never loved you," he growled. "You were always the one everyone absolutely adored, but me? No one loved me, except Tuyet, and she was criminally insane. Not you, not Dume, not even my parents! Oh no, Lhikan, it's had to be this way since the beginning. This is how it's supposed to play out. You, the captive. Me, the captor. Since the first Metru Nui it's been this way, and that's the way it's going to be now!" Turning sharply, he stalked out. "Krekka!" he called. "Let's go!" A hulking figure followed him out of wherever they were.

Kneeling on the ground, Lhikan hung his head. "Mata Nui, Nidhiki...no..."


	10. Search

**Late and long update is late and long.  
Total page count: 18 and a half.  
Total word count: 10, 052.  
Holy. Crap. I seriously think this is the longest thing I've ever written.  
So yeah, exams start in two days, and after that my Internet access is going to be severly limited, so don't expect a lot. PB86 and I will try to get the next Rahi Warrior up by the end of April, though. *end of shameless plugging*  
Edit: I have now added the page breaks. I forgot that you have to do that manually on here. If it ever looks like I need them, please don't hesitate to tell me! Thank you.  
Thanks for reading, and please review! Constructive criticism is always highly appreciated.  
*I don't own Bionicle, but I do own character designs, OC's, etc. You can use them if you ask first, though.***

Chapter 10: Search

Dume frowned at the book on his desk. It was a thick hardcover tome, with a green cover and silver accents. There was some kind of silver symbol on the front—he didn't know what it was, though. The book had been delivered to his house that morning, but he didn't remember ordering it. He traced the outline of the strange symbol with one finger. What could it mean?

Suddenly a low cackle started emanating from the book. Dume drew back quickly, watching it warily. He'd seen strange things in his time as a Toa and a Turaga, and an evil book was the least strange thing he'd seen. But his only defence against whatever this was was his Kanohi power of inorganic regeneration, not particularly useful in a fight for your life.

Then the book started to change. It was no longer a book at all, but a strange being of pure shadow, with glowing red slits for eyes. It flexed its claws at Dume, who narrowed his eyes.

"So it is you," he said.

The shadow being smiled, showing its pointed teeth. "That's right."

"Why the book?" Dume asked.

"Easier to get to you that way. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist trying to figure out what secrets it held. I used that against you and here we are."

Dume tilted his head. "Are you going to kill me?"

"Oh, no. I have much bigger plans for you, old man."

Dume shook his head. "Old man? No respect."

"That'll be the least of your worries." It rushed towards him, and Dume barely realised what it was going to do when it was suddenly upon him. He screamed, then his body sagged. When he looked up, his eyes flashed red momentarily as he walked out the door.

* * *

The teenage boy looked at the young man in front of him. "So there are six of these disks hidden around the city?"

The man nodded. "That's right. The Toa must not get them. So I want you to get them first and bring them to me."

This earned him a sceptical look. "If these disks are as powerful as you say, why should I give them to you, Nidhiki?"

Nidhiki smiled thinly. "Simple. If you give them to me, I won't kill you." The boy's eyes widened. "Oh, and there will be some kind of monetary compensation or something, but the biggest thing is that I won't kill you, and neither will my friend here." He gestured with one of his arms to the man next to him. He was huge and muscular, with white hair and an eye patch covering his right eye. He pounded his fists together and glared at the boy with his one good eye. "This is Krekka," Nidhiki explained. "He does whatever I say. If I say, for example, 'kill the boy,' he'll do it. Understood?"

The boy nodded vigorously, and Nidhiki's smile widened. "Good. Now, you may want to get going—I believe two of the Toa are searching in your Metru at the moment. Why not start with something easy?"

With another frightened nod, the boy took off. Nidhiki stretched all four of his arms and turned to Krekka. "Let's go to Ta-Metru. We have work to do."

* * *

"You have the disk, right?"

"Nuju that's the fifth time you've asked me that. Yes, I have the disk, and it's not going anywhere, so quit worrying already!"

Nuju sighed. At least they were on his turf today. The Ko-Metru Kanoka would hopefully be easier to find than the Onu-Metru one. But their riddle, "find where sky and ice are joined," made little to no sense. The only thing Nuju could think of would be either on top of a building or some kind of ski hill—but in a Metru full of 30-storey buildings and ski resorts, that could be anywhere.

It didn't help that he was worried about the disk that they already had. If anyone knew they had it, it could pose a problem with people trying to steal it. He made Whenua check every five minutes to make sure it was still secure. It wasn't like Nuju to be paranoid, but something about the day felt weird and wrong.

"Well, if it isn't Mat's big brother!"

Wincing, Nuju turned towards the voice. There was a boy about three years younger than him standing there, flanked by more boys his age. With a grimace, Nuju recognised him as Ehrye Snow.

"I don't have time for your crap right now, Ehrye," Nuju said, turning away. "Come on, Whenua, let's go."

"Running away, goody-two-shoes?"

Whenua didn't know who this was, but whoever he was, he obviously didn't know Nuju very well if he was calling him a 'goody-two shoes.' "Nuju, who's this idiot?" he asked.

"Ehrye," Nuju said, as if that explained it all. He turned back to Ehrye. "Look, Ehrye, unless you can tell me where I can find a special metal disk with a light blue pattern on it, you are useless to me and this conversation is over." He turned to go, but Ehrye's voice brought him back.

"A metal disk? I might've seen one of those."

Nuju paused, then calmly walked up to Ehrye and grabbed the front of his shirt. "Where did you see it, Ehrye? And don't even think about lying."

One of Ehrye's buddies started to step forward, but Ehrye held up a hand. He'd gotten into enough scrapes with Nuju to know not to mess with him. "Uh, right. It was up at Mount Koriri, at the top of the Suicide."

Releasing Ehrye, Nuju swore. "What?" Whenua asked. "Is that bad?"

"Mount Koriri is Ko-Metru's most exclusive ski club," Nuju explained. "It's for members only, and membership is really expensive." He raised an eyebrow at Ehrye. "How did _you_ get in?"

"My uncle runs it," Ehrye said proudly. "I got in for free the other day. I saw this weird disk thing, and thought it was just some weirdo's trash." He squinted at Nuju. "Is it important?"

"Maybe. Thanks, Ehrye." Nuju turned to go, then turned his head back. "Oh, by the way...didn't Matoro do so well on that last science test?" With that, he left Ehrye to fume, pulling a confused Whenua along behind him.

* * *

"Mountain in balance?" Onewa sighed. "Seriously, a mountain in balance? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Vakama rolled his eyes. Onewa had been griping about Po-Metru's riddle for the past hour. "How should I know? This is your Metru, remember?"

"Yeah, but do I know everything there is to know about Po-Metru? Nooooo, I don't."

"Don't you have _any_ ideas?"

"A couple," he admitted, crossing his legs. They were sitting at a bus stop, waiting for the number 39. "There are some huge buildings downtown with big observatory-type things on top."

"Like the CN Tower?"

"Nowhere near as big, but yeah, like that. That could technically count as a mountain in balance, I guess. Either that or the hill at the outskirts, but I don't think it's qualified enough to be a mountain; it's pretty small."

"Well, it's worth a shot. So where are we going first, Fearless Leader?"

Onewa shook his head. "No, no, no. _You're_ Fearless Leader. _I'm_ Dudley Doright."

"You've been spending way too much time with Matau. Stop making obscure _Rocky and Bullwinkle_ references and answer the question."

The bus chose that moment to arrive. "We're going downtown," he told him, flashing his bus pass. Vakama dropped his change in the machine and followed Onewa towards the back of the bus. "We're closer to that anyway, so we may as well look while we're here."

"Onewa? That you?"

Onewa turned at a familiar voice, a grin breaking out over his face. "Hafu! How's it going? I thought you were at the Ga-Metru Art Institute; what're you doing here?"

Hafu was a little shorter than Onewa, with tanned skin and brown hair and eyes. He grinned back at Onewa. "Done class for today, and unlike some, I'm not living in residence. How about you?"

"Uhh...job hunting." Vakama coughed. "Oh, yeah, this is Vakama. We, uh, have the same judo class."

"Nice to meet you," Vakama said politely.

"Er, likewise." A boy sitting next to Hafu pulled the same 'coughing-to-have-attention-drawn-to-me' move that Vakama had just pulled. "Oh, sorry, Ahkmou. This is Ahkmou; we're in the same program and we live real close, so we usually take the bus together."

Ahkmou smiled at them, and when he did, Vakama shivered. Something about his smile seemed wrong, somehow. It was all lips, and there was something in his eyes that unnerved Vakama. An image, like a half-forgotten dream, swam unbidden to the front of his mind. It was that of a short brown robot talking with the same two robots Vakama had seen before—the insectoid one and the big white one. "Be wary, Vakama," the old man's voice said. Vakama's mouth went dry. "Ahkmou is not to be trusted! Keep an eye on him."

"Vakama, you okay?"

Onewa's voice snapped him back to reality. "Uh, yeah. I'm fine."

Onewa rolled his eyes at Hafu, as if to say, "He does that."

"Ah, this is my stop," Ahkmou suddenly said, pulling the stop request cord and standing up. "Nice to meet you two. See you tomorrow, Hafu."

"Bye, Ahkmou!" Hafu called as Ahkmou got off the bus.

Vakama's mind worked quickly. Yesterday he'd ignored the voice in his head, and it had actually been beneficial. But he'd gone with his gut, and right now his gut was agreeing with the voice. There was something about Ahkmou, something wrong, and Vakama couldn't shake the feeling that it had something to do with Kanoka.

"Our stop too," he declared, dragging Onewa off the bus.

* * *

"How you liking the 'windy city,' Nokama?"

"What? I can't hear you over the wind!"

Matau pouted. "I can never tell if you're joking or not."

She smiled. "Okay, I'm joking. But isn't Chicago the windy city?"

"No, it's Le-Metru." When Nokama opened her mouth to argue, he interrupted her. "So do you have any ideas?"

Shooting him a glare, she replied, "This is your home Metru, Matau. Shouldn't you be the one coming up with ideas?"

"But...I don't have any, so I was wondering if you did."

"I've rarely left Ga-Metru! Ugh, whatever. Look, the clue is that the disk will be 'all around you' when you find it. Let's just think for a minute. Where could that be?"

"I vote we go to the coffee shop over there and talk about it!"

"Let's not. How about we try the library? There is a library in Le-Metru, right?"

He shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I've never been if there is one."

"Ugh! Matau!"

Matau pouted. "Look, I'm trying, okay? But I'm really bad with puzzles and riddles and stuff. That's yours and Nuju's stuff. I'm just the plucky comic relief!"

"This isn't a video game or a movie, Matau. This is reality, and if you don't start acting like—"

"Matau!"

The two Toa turned in time for Matau to get bowled over by someone. "What're you doing here?" he panted, sitting on top of Matau, beaming. He was a little shorter than Matau, but you could tell by their faces that they were related. They had the same eyes, though the boy's hair was a lighter shade of brown. And they both had a thing for green t-shirts, apparently, because the boy sitting on top of Matau was wearing a bright green one.

"Lewa, you're heavy!" Matau whined.

"Sorry!" Lewa chirped, bouncing up and offering Matau a hand up, as though he hadn't just tackled him to the cement on a busy street in the middle of the day.

"Lewa, wait up!" Another boy came running over. This one was long and lanky, with dark hair hanging into his face and in a black t-shirt and green wristbands. "Don't just run off like that, man," the newcomer panted. "Your brother'd kill me if anything—"

"Kongu!" Matau said happily.

Kongu looked surprised. "Matau! Dude, what're you doing here?"

Nokama was steadily becoming more and more confused. "Is anyone going to explain what's going on, or am I going to have to—"

"Oh, sorry, Nokama. This is my little brother Lewa—"

"Not so little anymore," Lewa said proudly, standing on tiptoe next to Matau.

"Knock it off, shrimp. Anyway, this is my best friend Kongu."

"Hi," Kongu said, sticking out his hand. As Nokama shook it, he asked, "So are you Matau's girlfriend or something?"

Matau chirped "Yes!" at the same time that Nokama bluntly stated, "No."

Kongu immediately burst out laughing. "Dude, you got shot _down_!"

Matau looked hurt, but with him it was hard to tell if he was playing it up or not, so Nokama quickly changed the subject. "We're just friends. I'm Nokama. Actually, we're looking for something." She described the disk they were looking for. "Seen it?"

Lewa and Kongu looked at each other. Lewa frowned. "That sounds like..."

"Yeah, Orkham."

Matau tensed. "What?" Nokama asked. "What's Orkham?"

"Not what, who," Matau said. "Orkham is this guy from our school—really doesn't like me for some reason."

"He's been muttering about some weird disk lately," Kongu said. "Said something about it making him important or something. Think that's it?"

"Could be. But Orkham's always been a little cross-wired, if you ask me. He could just be being weird again."

"It's worth looking into," Nokama said, "and it's our only lead. We should go. Nice to meet you guys."

"Hey," Lewa called as they walked away. "Sorry about jumping you earlier."

Matau waved back. "No problem!" he shouted back. "I'm used to it!"

Nokama wondered what kind of relationship the brothers had if getting jumped in the middle of a busy street was normal behaviour, but eventually decided that Matau was just plain weird.

* * *

"Okay, Nuju, do you want to explain what that was all about?"

"No."

Whenua frowned. They were on a bus heading for Mount Koriri, and he was still confused about the Ehrye kid they'd run into earlier. "Look, he's obviously someone you know, so..."

Nuju sighed, running a hand through his hair. "It's nothing. Ehrye used to be friends with my brother Matoro, but he started getting jealous of him, and of us, too."

"Us?"

"Me and my other brother, Kopaka. Anyway, he started getting jealous, and that made him bitter, and now he's always picking on my brothers, especially Matoro. Kopaka can hold his own, but Matoro's needed me to step in a couple times, something Ehrye's never going to let go. At least he's learned not to mess with me when I'm in a bad mood."

The dark smirk that crossed Nuju's face when he said that made Whenua swallow. "S-so how long until we get there?" he asked, changing the subject.

"About ten minutes. Is the disk—"

"It's fine, Nuju! Geez! What is _with_ you today?"

Nuju shifted and looked away, refusing to speak. An awkward silence settled over them, even after they'd gotten off the bus and had walked the rest of the way to the ski hill.

Whenua cleared his throat. "So, any plans for how to get in?"

Nuju shook his head. "None. I was trying to think of some on the bus, but sneaking into Mount Koriri is infamously difficult. The last person who tried apparently tried sneaking in from the back, so they've probably amped up the security there."

"And you know this how?"

"It was all written up in the papers at the time. Anyway, remember how you made those fake press badges yesterday?"

Whenua saw what he was getting at and shook his head. "I wouldn't know how to make ski passes. I don't know what they look like for Mount K; I only knew what MNC's press badges look like because one guy on my floor showed me his."

"Well, that's out then."

"Maybe we can bribe the staff."

Nuju rolled his eyes. "With what? I have enough money to get home and maybe grab dinner if we're here late, which is to say, not much."

"I have a tenner," Whenua offered.

"Helpful," Nuju said icily. "Let's just head in and see how much security they've got."

Surprisingly, there wasn't much. They could go anywhere they wanted besides the ski hills without a pass. That made things easier, but they still had to find the Suicide and then get up it. Whenua kept asking what the Suicide was, but Nuju just kept replying, "You'll see when we get there."

"Hey, Nuju, look." Whenua elbowed Nuju, then pointed. "Aren't those Vahki?"

Now that Nuju looked, it was true. There were two Vahki standing near the Ski Patrol hut, looking stoic as always.

"What're they doing here?" Whenua asked.

"Search me. Maybe something happened, or maybe they've been hired out to keep hooligans off the hills. Which, at the moment, means us, so we should probably steer clear of them." An abandoned ski lift caught his eye. "Come on, I have an idea."

"Where are we going?" Whenua asked, following.

Ignoring him, Nuju squinted at the keyhole that would turn the lift on. His eyes flashed as he used his telekinetic Kanohi powers to reach inside and turn it. With a groan, it started up. "Hurry!" he called to Whenua, who was lagging behind a little, as he jumped into the first chair. Whenua wasn't too far behind, and he managed to get on three chairs later.

That was when the Vahki noticed that something was out of place. Jerkily, they walked over to investigate. The first thing they did was try to activate the emergency stop button, but Nuju had left them a surprise.

"Shouldn't they have stopped us by now?" Whenua shouted up.

"That would be kind of difficult, since I disabled the stop and reverse buttons," Nuju called back.

"This is probably a bad time to tell you that I'm acrophobic, then?"

"Deal with it, you big baby."

* * *

"Why the hell are we following this guy?" Onewa whispered as they watched Ahkmou go around yet another corner.

Vakama didn't answer. "Because the voice in my head told me to" not only sounded insane, but distracted him with questions that he didn't have time to figure the answers out to. He just sauntered casually around the same building Ahkmou had gone around, like he wasn't stalking a random college student for no reason other than the fact that he was going nuts. With a scowl, Onewa followed.

They'd been following Ahkmou for at least half an hour by this point, and so far he'd succeeded in wasting their time. He wasn't going anywhere, by the looks of things. Onewa, who knew the layout of Po-Metru better than Vakama, had originally assumed he was going to the library, but now he seemed to be heading for the mall. They were on opposite ends of the Metru, and not for the first time he wondered if Ahkmou knew they were there and was just leading them in circles.

_It's like...it's like he wants us to follow him and get nothing done,_ he thought. _But that's crazy, right?_

Then again, maybe it wasn't. Nuhrii had turned out to know all about Mata Nui and Kanoka and everything, so there was nothing to say that Ahkmou wasn't also a Matoran. And if he was trying to get them away from the disk by walking in circles...

_Think, Onewa. If we were heading downtown and now we're going to central Po-Metru, where haven't we been? The outskirts? The borders?_

Then it dawned on him. Near the border of Po-Metru and Onu-Metru, there was a statue to the first mayor of Metru Nui, Alexander Payne. Payne had been famous for his larger-than-life hats, and his statue depicted him wearing his biggest and most extravagant one. It was so big it almost dwarfed the rest of the statue.

_A mountain in balance,_ Onewa thought.

"Come on," he said, grabbing Vakama's arm and dragging him away. "I know where the Kanoka is."

* * *

Ahkmou frowned. He'd been able to feel the Toa's eyes on him the entire time he'd been leading them on this goose chase, but suddenly he couldn't feel them anymore. Turning, his eyes confirmed it: they were gone. Cursing under his breath, he took off for the closest bus stop. If they weren't following him, it meant they'd figured out he was just leading them around, trying to stall them until he came up with a plan. He hadn't expected them to find him on that bus, or follow him for that matter, so he'd tried to delay them. Evidently, it was time for a new plan.

He didn't know how much of a head start they had on him, but if he didn't stop them, he didn't want to know what Nidhiki would do to him.

* * *

Vhisola resisted the urge to press her face against the glass to look at the beautiful dress in the window. It was absolutely gorgeous, but she'd never be able to afford it. She sighed. Contrary to popular opinion, window shopping was no fun; it just made you depressed.

"Excuse me, Miss."

Vhisola nearly jumped out of her skin. Turning, she saw a young man with dark brown hair wearing sunglasses, a hat, and a long black coat. "I'm looking for the nearest grocery store," he said politely. "Could you point me in the right direction?"

Swallowing, she pointed. "It's that way. Down the street, turn left at the lights. You can't miss it."

With a thin smile, he nodded. "I see. Thank you. Krekka, thank the nice young lady, will you?"

Stepping out of the shadows, the hulking man grabbed Vhisola from behind, covering her mouth and pinning her arms behind her. She struggled and tried to scream as they stuffed her into a nearby car.

As the door slammed and the car peeled off, Vhisola struggled to make sense of her surroundings. There were two others in the car: a man wearing a dress shirt, suspenders, and a name tag that said he was "Tehutti: Archivist," and a teenage boy about her age wearing jeans and a t-shirt. "What's going on?" she whispered.

The teenager shook his head. "They think we know where the Kanoka are," he explained, also in a whisper. "They want us to tell them where they are."

"What's a—"

"Quiet!" Krekka's voice rumbled back from the front seat. "Nidhiki don't like noise!"

Nidhiki, who was driving, muttered something that sounded like "Hasn't stopped you."

* * *

"I don't believe this."

Matau grinned sheepishly at Nokama. "Sorry."

"How do you get lost in your own home Metru?"

"Okay, in my defence, I only ever go to the arcade and the go-kart track. But I'm pretty sure Orkham has a job at one of the driving schools here; I just can't remember which one."

"We've tried five already. How many are there?"

"I dunno. Like, fifty. Let's try this one next!" He pointed at a building with a sign that said "Collision Prevention Driving School."

"How does he have a job at a driver's ed school if he just got his licence, anyway?" Nokama asked as they walked towards it.

"I think he just does basic secretary type stuff, but rumour has it he got 103% on his G exam. Whoever hired him was all too happy to since he made their school look good."

Matau held the door open for Nokama, then stepped in behind her and went to the counter. "Excuse me, is Orkham Breeze working today?"

They were expecting the secretary to tell them that no one by that name worked there, so they were surprised when she said, "Yeah, he's in the back right now, though. Is it important?"

"Very."

"I'll go get him, then. Make yourselves comfortable."

Matau immediately plopped down in one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs and grabbed a magazine. Nokama rolled her eyes with a smile and sat down, keeping an eye on the door. She was always on high alert lately. Something in the city felt wrong, but she couldn't place what. Maybe she should ask Vakama if he'd had any more visions he wasn't telling them about.

That was another thing. Vakama had clammed up about his visions lately. She understood that they made him feel like a freak, and she sympathized, but still, if there was some kind of danger he wasn't telling them about, that could be a problem.

"What the hell do you want?"

A new voice snapped her back to the real world. There was a young man about hers and Matau's age, with short, well-groomed blonde hair and narrowed blue eyes standing in front of the counter, his arms folded. He was wearing a spotless dress shirt and black pants, and if the look he gave Matau was any indication, he was not impressed with their being there.

Matau, for his part, grinned and bounced up off the chair. "Hey, Orkham! How's it going?"

"Fine. What do you want?"

"So much for small talk," Matau muttered. "We need the disk you found."

Orkham bristled. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on, Orkham," Matau said, slinging an arm around the boy's shoulders, making him tense even more. Pulling him closer, he whispered, "You know exactly what I'm talking about. That disk is going to save the city, and we need it."

"Don't touch me," Orkham growled, pushing Matau away. "How could a screw-up like you save the city? You barely graduated high school!" Matau grimaced, and Nokama could see that Orkham had struck a low blow.

But he wasn't done yet. "You're an idiot, a weakling, and a freak. If you think I'm going to help you, then you're even stupider than I thought."

There was a pause. Then Matau asked quietly, "Are you done?"

"Trust me, I could go on," Orkham snapped.

"Yeah, well, don't. You've made your point. I get it. You hate me. You always have, and you probably always will. But that doesn't change the fact that I need the disk you've found, and if you don't give it to me, your life's going to be in serious danger."

Orkham's eyes narrowed further. "Is that a threat?"

"No, it's a fact. There are bad guys out there who want the disk, and—"

"Bad guys?" Orkham laughed. "Like who?"

Matau lowered his voice. "The Dark Hunters, for one. They're probably after it."

Orkham seemed to pause at the mention of the Dark Hunters. For some reason, the name brought up a feeling of dread. He thought. And thought. And thought. Finally, he said, "Alright. I'll help you." He turned to the secretary, who was on the phone. "Janice, is it okay if I take my break now?"

Janice waved him out with a nod. Her eyes tracked them as they left. "The Toa just left," she whispered into the phone. "They have Orkham with them—and they're heading for the Great Disk."

* * *

"Nuju?"

"What?"

"How much longer?"

"How should I know?"

They'd been sitting on the chairlift for what seemed like days. This was one of the reasons why Whenua hated skiing: you sit on an uncomfortable, bouncing, swinging chair for an hour to go down a snowy hill in two minutes or less. That and he just hated heights and being cold in general.

"Do you even know what hill this goes up to?" Whenua called.

Nuju shrugged. "No, but we can figure that out when we get up there. Ah, it looks like we're almost there." There, up ahead, was the small hut where the lift attendant would be if the lift was supposed to be working. And the small hill to get off the lift onto. And the Vahki.

Nuju's eyes widened. _Vahki? How did they get up here so fast?_

"Whenua," he shouted over his shoulder, "change in plan. Right before the hill, jump. Got it?"

Whenua's eyes widened and he shook his head frantically. "No way! It's too far down, and we'll either hit a tree or hit the ground! It makes no difference—we're dead either way!"

"Just trust me on this! I know what I'm doing!" Lifting the safety bar on his chair, Nuju added, under his breath, "I think."

He took a breath. If he timed it just right...

_Now!_

Nuju jumped out of his chair, landing on the hill and rolling to the side. The Vahki were advancing, so he slid down the side away from them and vanished into the trees directly underneath the chairlift.

Whenua, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. Now the Vahki were directly on top of the hill, and if he pulled the same move Nuju did, they'd catch him. He'd have to jump.

Or would he? Letting instinct take over, he grabbed the rung under the chair and hung from it, smacking into the side of the hill and sliding down. He scrambled to his feet and took off after Nuju.

Ten seconds later, a hand on his shoulder almost made him scream. "Whenua, it's me!" Nuju hissed.

Relaxing, Whenua glared at his partner. "Next time, warn me."

"Fine. Hit the deck." They dropped to the ground and Nuju created a coating of snow and ice over them, thin enough that they could see out, but thick enough that it was an effective camouflage.

Just in time, too—the Vahki were in the woods, looking for them. There were about five or six of them, all completely identical, from their white hair to the blank expressions on their faces.

Whenua frowned. The Vahki they'd seen at the Archives—Rorzakh—hadn't their hair been black? Other than that, they were identical.

One had a small gold badge pinned to its chest, almost like an old West sheriff's badge. It seemed to be their leader, though that didn't give it any more emotions. "They must have escaped. Spread out and search for them." With barely perceptible nods, the Vahki marched off in six different directions.

The hidden Toa let out breaths they hadn't realised they were holding. Shattering the ice above them with a mental command, Nuju stood up and helped Whenua to his feet. "Let's get out of here. They could come back any minute."

"Right. So where are we, anyway?"

"The top of one of the hills. I think it's closed because there's not enough snow on it right now, hence why the chairlift wasn't operational."

"How do you know that?"

Nuju pointed to the bare patches dotting the hill. "Call it a hunch. If the map I saw earlier was any indication—"

"Wait, when did you have time to check a map?"

"There was one on the way in. Anyway, if I remember correctly, it said the Chute was closed, so this must be that hill. And it said the Chute was right next to the Suicide—so if we can find a way over to the Suicide from here, we should be able to find the Kanoka."

"Great! Which way?"

Nuju pointed. "That way. Come on." He led the way, Whenua gingerly picking his way along behind him.

"So why exactly is this thing called the Suicide?" Whenua asked.

Nuju paused, then actually decided to answer this time. "Rumour has it that someone died on it once, about ten years ago."

Whenua visibly gulped. This was doing nothing for his morale. He hoped the others were doing better, wherever they were.

* * *

Vakama stared. "That's got to be the biggest hat I've ever seen."

They were at Alexander Payne's statue. Like Onewa had said on the way over, Payne was actually depicted in the statue in his Napoleon Bonaparte-style hat. The thing was, Payne himself had been very short, and the hat had been way too big for him, even in real life, so it practically dwarfed the rest of the statue. It was a perfect 'mountain in balance,' like the riddle had said.

"Yep, it's a biggun, alright," Onewa agreed. "Now, how do we get up there without getting the police on our asses?"

"I could turn invisible and climb it," Vakama suggested.

Onewa blinked. "That's actually...a really logical suggestion. Who _are_ you?"

"Oh shut up," Vakama mumbled, blushing.

"Nope, you're definitely Vakama. My mistake. That's not a bad idea, actually. I'll stay down here, and if anyone asks, I'll mind control them away! Okay, Fearless Leader, up you go!"

"Stop calling me that," Vakama grumbled, heading behind the statue before turning invisible. He looked up. It had sounded so easy when he'd said it, but now he wasn't so sure. It was a _really_ big statue; one misplaced step and he could quite easily plummet to his death.

Trying not to think about it, he pulled himself onto the base and started to climb.

Onewa, for his part, was wandering around, pretending to be interested in the various engravings on the base of the statue. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar face.

He whipped his head around, but Ahkmou was gone. Frowning, he went back to looking around, this time keeping an eye out specifically for Ahkmou. The next time he saw him, he managed to keep his eyes trained on him. Ahkmou was trying his best to be sneaky, but when he saw Onewa, he panicked and tried to run. Fleeing in a crowded street, though, is tougher than it sounds. The Toa of Stone immediately gave chase—but chasing in a crowded street is even harder than fleeing in one.

Up above, Vakama was inching his way onto Payne's shoulder. Not being able to see your own hands is really difficult when you're trying not to fall to your death. Resisting the urge to look down, he reached up and grabbed the brim of Payne's hat. Now he was hanging by both hands, dangling precariously above the cement. If he let go now, he'd soon become a lot flatter.

His arms were really starting to hurt now, but he managed to scramble onto the side of the hat, where he knelt, panting and shaking the aches out of his arms. Only then did he choose to look down. He frowned. Where was Onewa? He hadn't gotten fed up and ditched Vakama, had he? Then he saw him hurrying through the crowd towards—was that Ahkmou?

Suddenly it all made sense. Ahkmou _had_ been leading them in circles, trying to keep them from the Kanoka, just like Onewa had said. And now that he knew they were close to the disk, he was here, trying to keep them from it. Suddenly Ahkmou stopped running away and started walking jerkily towards Onewa, who was obviously using his mask power to get him to come to Onewa instead of the other way around.

Two police officers caught Vakama's eye. They were moving through the crowd at a steady pace. Even from this high up, Vakama could tell they were identical. What had Whenua and Nuju said about the robot police officers the other day? They were known as Vahki. They were experimental law enforcement robots. Their only emotion was a desire for justice.

And right now, they were headed straight for Onewa.

* * *

"This is as far as I go."

Matau looked up at Orkham. "What? But—"

He shook his head. "Even if the city depends on this thing, I can't help you anymore. I have to...I have to get back to work."

Matau and Nokama looked up at the building they were in front of. It was the Le-Metru Museum of Science and Technology, the only museum Matau had ever been to that had actually held his interest. According to Orkham, the disk was in the antigravity room, one of the random floating objects. People weren't allowed in the antigravity chamber, so they had to content themselves with watching things float around. Orkham had been there the week before on a science class trip, and he'd seen it. Something about it had seemed important, and he'd done some research before finding out what it was. Always striving to one-up everyone else (especially Matau), he'd been determined to get his hands on it.

Now, he grudgingly stood next to Matau, half glaring at him. Why did he get to be the hero while Orkham, who worked hard for everything, was stuck working a dead-end job at a driving school? Matau had never worked hard for anything in his life, and once again, here he was, being the hero after doing almost nothing at all.

Matau turned to him and clapped a hand on his shoulder, making him wince and grimace simultaneously. "Thanks, Orkham," he said honestly. "This really means a lot."

Orkham was slightly shocked. Matau was thanking him? For what? All he'd done was show them where to go and what to do...

Oh. He'd basically done the hard part, hadn't he?

At least Matau was giving him credit for it. No one ever gave Orkham credit for anything he'd done. Despite himself, he felt a small smile spreading across his face.

He patted Matau on the shoulder, too. "No problem," he said quietly. Then, shaking the moment off, he turned and walked away, while the other two went into the museum.

Orkham was barely two feet down the street when he was grabbed from behind and jammed into the back of a black car. He didn't even have time to scream before the door closed and the car took off.

* * *

"What was all that about?" Nokama asked after they'd paid their five dollars each (cheapest museum ever) and were walking towards where the information desk lady had said the antigravity chamber was.

"Huh?"

"You and Orkham."

Matau shrugged. "He hates me, I don't know him well enough to hate him...that about sums it up."

"No, I mean, back there you seemed to have some kind of...I don't know...moment. You know?"

"Uh...nope, no idea what you're talking about."

Nokama rolled her eyes and chalked it up to either her tendency to over romanticise situations or Matau being a stubborn idiot.

* * *

Whenua looked out over the Suicide. It was very apply named: anyone trying to ski down it would probably die. It was an almost vertical slope, like they'd tried to make a ski hill out of a cliff. He made sure to stay as far back from the edge as possible—this was _so_ not helping his acrophobia.

"Come on," Nuju said, looking around. "Ehrye said it was up here somewhere."

"I'll look over here, where it's safe-looking," Whenua said, sticking along the fence at the back. "How about you use those built-in binoculars you were telling me about to see if you can find it?"

"That only works in Toa form, and there are too many people around." Nuju squinted, peering into the tree-bordered field behind the fence. "I think I see it."

"What? Where?"

Nuju pointed. It was stuck in one of the tree branches. "No wonder Ehrye thought it was trash; who sticks something important in a tree?"

Whenua had already hopped the fence and was headed for the tree. "Great. We get disk, we get out of here. This is sounding better and better."

"Whenua, wait! There could be—"

_CRACK!_

The Toa of Earth froze. "What was that?"

_CRACK!_

"Whenua, don't move!" Nuju shouted, scrambling over the fence. "I think there's some kind of frozen pond or something under that snow, and your weight—"

_**CRACK!**_

With a scream, Whenua plunged into freezing water. He struggled to keep his eyes open and see where the hole was, but he couldn't, it was too cold, and his chest was burning...

A hand tugged on his arm, and he followed it. Within seconds, he was above water, gasping for air and shivering violently. With a grunt, Nuju pulled him out of the water. "Are you alright?" he asked, concerned, once Whenua was on solid ground again.

Coughing, Whenua nodded. "Thanks."

Nuju shrugged. Most people would have said, "You'd have done the same," or "Don't worry about it," or, at the very least, "You're welcome." Nuju said, "Stay here; I'll get the disk."

Whenua nodded, sneezing. Nuju clumsily pulled himself up the tree—he hadn't been much of a tree-climber, even as a kid—and managed to knock the disk down. Dropping to the ground, he picked it up, then offered Whenua a hand. "Let's get out of here and somewhere dry."

Nodding, Whenua allowed Nuju to help him up. "No offense, Nuju, but I think I'm going to be avoiding Ko-Metru for the next little while."

"None taken. Let's go."

* * *

Vakama's eyes widened. Onewa had no idea the Vahki were there! But Vakama was way up here, and his teammate was way down there. How could he warn him?

In his anxiety, the temperature around him rose a few degrees. Then an idea struck him. Concentrating, he tried increasing the temperature around Onewa. If nothing else, it would make him look around...

Onewa grimaced. Was it him, or was it starting to get uncomfortably warm all of a sudden? He was looking around to see if anyone else noticed when he saw two identical police officers headed straight for him. Everything from their uniforms to the cut of their brown hair was exactly the same. Remembering what Nuju and Whenua had said about Vahki, he immediately released his hold on Ahkmou's mind and pushed his way through the crowd, away from the Vahki.

_Wait a second...that temperature shift..._ He looked up at the statue. _I'll ask the firespitter about it later. Right now, I'd better lead them away._

On top of the statue, Vakama relaxed. Turning, he saw that nestled in a crack in the hat was the disk. Several tugs later and it was free. Now to get down.

Climbing down was even harder and scarier than climbing up, Vakama soon discovered, since he had the added hindrance of the Kanoka to worry about. Sticking it in his mouth, he dropped over the edge of the hat and tried to hook his legs around Payne's outstretched arm. One misstep and he would—

Falling, he was falling, oh crap crappity crap crap—

"OOF!"

Onewa grinned down at the Toa in his arms. "Hey, Vakama," he said brightly, setting him back on his feet. "Have a nice trip?"

Vakama's heart was beating wildly. "Tha-thank you," he panted, breathless from his near-death experience. "But how did you know I was falling? I thought I was invisible."

"You stopped being invisible when you used your powers to heat the area around me. I guess you can't use your elemental power and your Kanohi power at the same time. Anyway, we should get out of—"

Onewa suddenly cut himself off. While they were talking, the two Vahki had come up behind them, and one had a hand on Onewa's shoulder. The Stone Toa's face went blank, and Vakama backed away. "O-Onewa?"

"Get the disk from him," the Vahki with its hand on Onewa's shoulder ordered.

"Yes, sir," Onewa said in a monotone, walking towards Vakama.

Vakama's eyes widened. _Crap crap crap crap crap—_

Onewa pounced and Vakama, without thinking, punched him across the face.

Onewa let out a long string of curse words that would have made a sailor blush, clutching his cheek. "What the hell, Vakama?" he shouted. "My face, man! My precious lady-killer face!"

"Y-you're back to normal," Vakama stuttered, surprised. The Vahki looked surprised, too, or at least as surprised as Vahki could get—which was to say, they each had one eyebrow raised. "We need to go, now." He turned and started to run, trusting that Onewa would keep up.

He didn't disappoint. "What the hell was that for, anyway?" he snapped. "Why'd you punch me?"

"The Vahki...I don't know, they did something to you, and you were trying to take the disk to give to them. I punched you in self defence, and I guess it broke their influence or something."

"Huh. Well, thanks, I guess. We should be getting back, huh?"

"Toa! Wait, please!"

They froze and looked around. They seemed to have lost the Vahki, but the familiar figure of Arisa hobbled towards them.

"You're just everywhere, aren't you?" Onewa muttered.

"Arisa, what's wrong?" Vakama asked. "Why are you limping?" It was true; she was barely putting any weight on her right leg.

"They came," she said, her eyes wide. "They came and took Nuhrii!"

Onewa and Vakama cast sharp looks at each other. "Who?" Vakama demanded. "Who took him?"

She looked seriously at him. "The Hunters. The Dark Hunters kidnapped Nuhrii."

* * *

The objects inside the chamber floated around while the people crowded around it, trying to get a better look. Two of the crowding people were Matau and Nokama, desperately searching for the disk that Orkham had said was there. Even after most of the others had moved on to other exhibits, and new people had joined them, they continued to search until Nokama pointed. "There!"

Matau squinted. Sure enough, there it was. The objects were moving slowly, but there were enough of them that just trying to pinpoint one was a task in itself. "Great," he said unenthusiastically. "Now we have to get in there." He looked pointedly at Nokama, who shook her head.

"No, Matau, I'm not pulling the 'crying girl wants her precious artefact that her daddy gave her before he died' act. That's immoral and completely ridiculous."

"Do you have a better plan?"

"Sure. We break in."

Matau gaped at her. _Nokama_, of all people, was suggesting that they _break in_ and _steal_ something from the only interesting museum in the entire city? Right after she'd called his _genius_ plan _immoral_ and _ridiculous_?

He grinned. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

They quickly devised a plan and went in search of some kind of 'behind the scenes' room. A door marked "Staff Only" seemed their best bet, but of course it was locked. Not just any lock, either, but an electronic code lock, meaning it probably went somewhere important. A small amount of water was all it took to short it out.

"Not very good security here, is there?" Nokama commented, opening the door. The twosome found themselves in a room full of blinking lights and flashing buttons. At the back of the room were other doors with blatant signs on them. One read "Electricity Exhibit," while another stated that it went to the "Special Exhibit Room." Another door—the one they were looking for—led to the "Antigravity Chamber."

"You don't happen to know how to turn off the antigravity-ness in this room, do you?" Matau asked.

Nokama looked behind them at the switches and buttons. "I could go around pressing colourful buttons, but it probably wouldn't help. In fact, it would probably just make things worse."

"True that. Okay, you stay guard out here—I'm going in."

Nokama had a sneaking suspicion that Matau was just using this as an opportunity to float around in zero gravity, but didn't say anything as he slipped into the chamber.

Matau immediately felt like he was going to throw up as he tipped upside down. "This...is...awesome!" he shouted, trying to swim through the air. "To infinity...and beyond!"

"Stop goofing around in there," Nokama's voice said from the other side. Thanks to a small one-way mirror in the door, she could see what antics Matau was up to. "Remember why we're here."

"Just one more. TOA...IN...SPAAAAAAAACE! Okay, now I'm done." He looked around. "I don't see the disk."

"It's in there; just keep looking."

"Helpful," Matau muttered. He happened to glance outside and saw that there was a huge crowd gathered to watch the weird guy floating around in the antigravity room. Amongst them were two stern-looking security guards, watching him with narrowed eyes. Gulping, he waved sheepishly. "Uh, h-hey there," he said brightly.

Their eyes narrowed further and they marched off. "Crap! Nokama, there are two security guards headed for you!"

"Then hurry up and get the disk!"

Matau looked around frantically, finally spotting it. "Found it!" He tried to get over to it, but moving around in zero gravity in real life is a lot harder than it is on TV. He flapped his arms and kicked his legs, and finally managed to move a little way. The disk started floating off in another direction, and he growled and tried moving towards it again. He reached out, and his fingers grazed the disk...

"Got it!" he shouted triumphantly. There was silence from the other side of the door. Looking back at the door, Matau called, "Nokama?" He smacked into a wall with a grunt, then turned around and used it to propel himself towards the door. He reached it much quicker than it took to get the disk thanks to his momentum, and he pulled it open and dropped to the floor on the other side.

He grabbed Nokama's hand and pulled her towards the door. "Come on, we've got to get out of here!" Shoving it open, they raced for the exit. They heard shouting, and an alarm started wailing. Matau swore loudly, earning a smack on the head from Nokama.

"Watch your language!" she snapped. "There are bound to be guards at all the exits! We can't just leave through the front door!"

"Sure we can!" Matau said. "We'll just have to fight our way out."

"And risk exposing ourselves and ruining everything?"

"Look, how many ways out do you know?"

Nokama sighed. "You have a point. Out the front it is."

* * *

"Aa-choo!"

Nuju glanced back at Whenua. They'd spent the last half hour at a nearby Tim Hortons using the hand dryers to dry off once they'd escaped from Mount Koriri, but Whenua seemed like he'd caught a cold anyway. He wasn't surprised; a dip in freezing water in Ko-Metru in early October does that to a person. At least they were drier and warmer now.

A loud groan from the alleyway they were approaching drew Nuju's attention. He looked back at Whenua and jerked his head towards it. Whenua nodded. More likely than not, it was just two horny teenagers making out, but it didn't hurt to be sure. They were supposed to be heroes, after all.

As it turned out, it was a good thing they checked. Lying on the ground were two teenage boys that Nuju dimly recognised as having been with Ehrye earlier. He rushed over to one while Whenua went to the other one. The one Nuju was with squinted up at him. "What happened?" Nuju asked, checking him over for injuries. The boy was covered in them, mostly bruises and what looked like broken limbs, though there was a cut on his head flowing rather steadily. He grabbed a tissue from his pocket and pressed it over the wound.

Ehrye's friend didn't seem to understand, because he just looked blankly up at him, gasping for breath and occasionally moaning in pain. A shadow fell over them and Nuju looked up to see Whenua. "The other one's dead," he said quietly.

This drew a cry from the boy in front of them. "N-no! That freak killed him!"

"What happened?" Nuju asked again, not liking where this was going.

"This guy...he came out of nowhere...he had four arms, and he grabbed Ehrye and shoved him in a car...we tried to stop him, but this big albino Hulk guy...he..."

The Toa could guess what the 'Hulk guy' had done. "Go call an ambulance," Nuju told Whenua, pulling out another tissue and replacing the now blood-soaked one. "Listen," he told the teen. "We're going after these two freaks who kidnapped Ehrye. Do you have any idea where they've taken him?"

He tried to shake his head, but Nuju held it firmly in place, trying to keep him as still as possible. "N-no, they just drove off...they went that way..." He pointed.

Whenua came back. "Ambulance is on the way. I've texted Vak and Matau to let them know what's happened."

Nuju nodded, handed the boy another tissue (_Where's he getting all these tissues?_ Whenua wondered), and stood up. "We have to go. You can't tell the cops we were here, though." When he started to ask why, Nuju held up a hand. "We can't have people knowing about who we are and what we do." He turned to go. "Let's meet up with the others," he told Whenua, walking out of the alleyway.

The sound of the teenager's voice stopped them. "What are you?"

Whenua grinned over his shoulder. "We're heroes!" Then he sneezed and followed Nuju.

* * *

"D-Dark Hunters?" Vakama half-yelped.

"What are Hunters doing in the city?" Onewa asked. "I thought they agreed to leave!"

Arisa shook her head. "They agreed not to attack or invade Metru Nui. The Shadowed One, their leader, seems to have found a loophole."

Vakama bit his lip. "What sort of loophole?"

"If someone within the city requested their services, then they would be able to come in without violating the terms of their agreement with Dume. Dume's hands would be tied."

Onewa swore. "Where'd they take him?"

She shook her head again. "I don't know. He was shoved in a car and taken away before we could do anything."

Vakama heard the faint strains of Simon and Garfunkel's "Patterns" playing and pulled out his cell phone to check his texts. Onewa snorted. "Nice ringtone, dude."

"Shut up." It was from Whenua. As he scanned the message, his eyes widened. "Nuhrii's not the only one who's been kidnapped. Apparently this guy named Ehrye that Nuju knows got kidnapped, too—shortly after telling them where the Kanoka was!"

As Vakama's thumbs expertly replied to the message, basically explaining what had happened on their end, Onewa turned to Arisa. "Something's going on here, and it's bigger than the Morbuzakh. What's happening, Arisa? What is it that people aren't telling us?"

Arisa sighed. "I don't know. I wish I could tell you, but I only know that you're right, this is way bigger than the Morbuzakh. Plants don't hire mercenaries...but I get the feeling that these incidents are all connected."

"Nuju wants us to meet at the residence to regroup," Vakama said. "And apparently they haven't heard anything from Matau or Nokama. I hope they're okay..."

* * *

"Nokama," Matau panted, his hands on his knees, "has anyone told you lately how amazing you are?"

She somehow managed to smile innocently, even though she was wheezing for air. "Yes, but tell me anyway."

"You are so. Freaking. Awesome. Seriously, turning on the sprinkler systems? Dude!"

"I didn't turn them on. I just made it look like they'd gone haywire and were spraying so much that it became a bit of a flood. Their carpets will be ruined, but the important thing is..."

"We got away," Matau finished. Holding up the metal disk, he added, "And we got the Kanoka."

_"Here's a llama, there's a llama, tablet brick potato llama, llama llama cheesecake llama..."_

"What's that?" Nokama asked, not bothering to keep the disdain out of her voice.

"My ringtone," Matau replied proudly, pulling out his cell phone and flipping it open just as it sang, _"Llama llama duck!"_ He scanned the text that had popped up, then swore.

Nokama flicked his forehead. "This is no time for that!"

"Ow! Actually, it's the perfect time for that. There was this guy in Ko-Metru who told Nuju and Whenua where the Ko-Metru disk was, and he's been kidnapped." The sultry strains of the Llama Song assaulted their ears again, and Matau pressed a button. "The plot thickens...you know how yesterday, Vakama and Onewa were telling us about a guy named Nuhrii who helped them?" When Nokama nodded, he continued. "Apparently he's MIA too." The Llama Song started playing a third time.

Nokama scowled. "Let me guess, someone else has been kidnapped," she said, half-joking.

Matau had stopped moving. "Matau?" she asked.

"Shit," he whispered. "No, no, no no no no no!"

"What? What is it; what happened?"

He turned the phone to show her. The message on the screen said this:

_'Matau—_

_We have Orkham. If you want him back alive, bring the other Toa and all six Great Disks to the roof of City Hall in one hour. The others are here too, and they're safe—for now._

_N.'_

"N?" Nokama asked. "Who's N?"

Matau shook his head. "I don't know. But something weird is going on, and we have to find out what it is."

* * *

Several texts and about half an hour later, all six Toa were gathered at the entrance to Metru Nui's City Hall. Each of them was clutching their respective disk, and Vakama led them inside. Ignoring the protesting receptionist, they headed for the elevators and took them to the top floor. They wasted a good fifteen minutes looking for stairs to the roof and hiding from the security guards the receptionist had called, and finally made it onto the roof once Matau discovered a door blatantly labelled "STAIRS TO ROOF."

It was certainly windy on the roof—partly because it was so high up, partly because it was close to Le-Metru, which was famous for its strong winds. They each transformed, ready for anything.

"Ah, Toa, there you are. I was beginning to think you wouldn't come."

They turned to see two figures standing next to five kneeling ones. The kneeling figures were easily recognised as Tehutti, Ehrye, Vhisola, Orkham, and Nuhrii. The standing ones were unfamiliar. One was tall, with white hair and lots of muscles. The other, while tall, wasn't as tall as the other one, and had four arms. Two arms were folded across his chest, the other two propped on his hips. Light glinted in his bi-coloured eyes.

Nuhrii grinned triumphantly up at him. "I told you they would come."

The four-armed man chuckled. "Oh, I knew they'd come. They're _Toa_." He spat Toa like it was poison. "It's part of their 'duty' to help those who need it." On 'duty,' he made air quotes with the hands that had been propped on his hips. "I should know. I was one once."

Suddenly several things clicked into place for Vakama. Ahkmou had been leading them around on the orders of this duo. The kidnappers were the Earth incarnations of the two robots he'd seen taking Lhikan away in his vision—one hulking and white, the other four-legged and green, like these two here. And the four-armed one...

"You're...you're Nidhiki, aren't you." It was a fact, not a question.

Nidhiki gave a mock bow. "Congratulations, oh great wise one!" he said mockingly. "You've figured it out!"

Matau drew a sharp intake of breath. "N-no...Nidhiki, no! Why?"

"Oh, shut up," Nidhiki snapped. "Why, why, why. That's all anyone's asking me lately! 'Why am I here?' 'Why did you turn from the light?' 'Why won't you just listen to the Shadow Thing?' I'm sick and tired of being asked why!"

"Then don't give us so many reasons to ask it," Whenua said.

Onewa elbowed him. "Hey, big guy? Let's not anger the one with the hostages, yeah?"

Nidhiki nodded. "Listen to Onewa; he knows what he's doing."

Vakama's eyes blazed as he glared at the duo. "What the hell do you want?"

"What our employer wants: the Great Disks. Give them to my friend Krekka there." He nodded at the albino accompanying him.

"No."

Nidhiki's eyes narrowed. "Yes. You _will_ give me the disks, Toa, or you will force me to do something that I won't regret at all."

"Like what?" Nokama challenged.

"Uh, Nokama, really not a good idea," Onewa muttered.

Nidhiki shrugged. "Oh, I don't know...like this." In the blink of an eye, he'd lunged forward and grabbed Tehutti by the throat, holding him over the edge of the roof. "Now," he said patiently as the Toa Metru instinctively stepped forward and Tehutti screamed, "give us the Kanoka, Toa, and no one has to get hurt."


	11. Confront

**Okay, okay, I know I said this would take a while on my latest News post on my profile, but I was working on it and found a great spot to end it, so I did. I'm an evil bitch, I know.  
So...yes. This has epic (fail) action sequences, as well as Sidorak. Um...joy?  
Next chapter will probably have more Sidorak scenes mixed in with all the regular drama again. Again...joy?  
Whatever, I like this chapter even though I suck at writing action. Well, please try to enjoy, and please review no matter what your opinion is! Constructive criticism is always appreciated (especially on fight scenes please).  
*I don't own Bionicle, but I do own character designs, OC's, etc. You can use them if you ask first, though.*  
**

Chapter 11: Confront

Sidorak King didn't bother shouting out that he was home as he walked into the dorm room that he shared with Onewa. If Onewa was home, he wouldn't care that Sidorak was back. If he wasn't home, well, there wouldn't be anyone there. Either way, he'd just be met with silence.

Opening the door to his room, he slung his bag onto his bed, then attacked the fridge in search of milk. Triumphantly, he pulled it out from the back—

And promptly dropped it when he turned around and saw the giant green spider in his kitchen.

It was about the size of a medium-sized dog, a bright emerald green in colour, with red slits for eyes. Its head tilted, almost human-like in its confusion as to why the skinny human in front of it was seemingly trying to shove himself into his own fridge in his attempt to flee.

Sidorak, for his part, was freaking out. Sure, he loved bugs, and yes, he'd been branded a dork from an early age because of his obsession with spiders. But this just wasn't physically possible! A spider that big? And that colour? It was definitely a spider though—two body parts, eight legs...giant pincers...

He couldn't help it. A small whimper managed to escape as he pressed himself as far away from it as he could get without actually bolting for the door. Actually, bolting for the door sounded like a good idea. Sidorak was about to do just that when the spider clicked its pincers. It clicked them rapidly and repeatedly, in a sort of rhythm, as though it was saying something in 'spider.' And that wasn't even the weird part. The weird part was that Sidorak understood what it meant as clearly as if it'd been speaking English.

_"Master,"_ it said, bowing. _"We have found you at last."_

Sidorak's eyes widened and he sat down hard on the floor. "Wh-what?"

_"We searched many years for you, Master," _it continued, _"ever since we were created. With you leading us, the Visorak hordes will become great once more!"_

Visorak...the word sounded familiar, though Sidorak couldn't place where. He also noticed it had a strange sort of connection to his own name. "I-I don't understand," he whispered. "What are you t-talking about?"

Now it was the monster spider's turn to look surprised. _"Majesty, don't you remember anything? How great the hordes once were? The lands we conquered together?"_

"C-conquered?" Sidorak sputtered. "That's not me; you've got the wrong guy! I'm just a dental hygiene student; I'm not cut out for conquering and leading and stuff! Trust me, Keelerak, you've made a huge mistake."

He got the feeling that it was giving him the spider equivalent of a raised eyebrow. _"Then how did you know the name of my specific strain of Visorak without my telling you?"_

"What?"

_"Keelerak. You called me Keelerak. All green Visorak are called Keelerak. There's no possible way you could have known that without prior knowledge of the hordes...and no one knew us better than you—Sidorak, the Visorak King."_

Sidorak shook his head again. "This can't be happening. This has got to be a dream." He brightened significantly. "That's it! It's all just a dream! I'll be waking up now." He pinched himself on the arm, hard, and winced in pain. "Owww!"

_"Humans,"_ Keelerak sighed. _"My Lord, this is no dream. This is reality. How can I convince you?"_

"You say we conquered lands together," Sidorak said cautiously. "What lands? And why don't I remember it, if it's all like you said? Why can I understand you?" _Maybe there were some weird shrooms in my sandwich earlier and this is a hallucination,_ he thought.

The spider interrupted his train of thought while it was still boarding at the station. _"You don't remember because it was another you, I suppose. Others retained their memories, so we had been hopeful you would have done the same..."_

"Wait wait wait. Hold on a second. Another me? As far as I know, there's only one Sidorak King."

Keelerak crawled towards him, and he cringed. But it just reached out a foreleg and brushed it almost tenderly against his cheek. _"Come," _it almost cooed. _"We can teach you what you've forgotten, answer all your questions. Will you come, Sidorak King?"_

Sidorak swallowed. More giant Technicolor spiders? The thought made him more than a little queasy. But he found himself standing anyway, and following Keelerak to the door.

* * *

The Toa Metru had never been in a situation quite this dire before. Nidhiki still held a screaming Tehutti by the throat, just waiting for the Toa to give him a reason to send him plummeting to his doom. A well calculated burst of energy would stun Nidhiki, but that might cause him to let go, and there were still the other hostages to worry about, not to mention Krekka.

Whenua was especially worried. He'd dragged Tehutti into this mess—an innocent bystander if ever there was one—and he'd never forgive himself if anything happened to him. But the fate of the city was at stake! What was that line from _Star Trek_? "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Well, screw you Spock, today the few were more important!

The only problem was that he had absolutely no idea what to do. That and the fact that Nidhiki had started to give them a countdown. "Ten...nine...eight..."

"Alright!" Vakama shouted. "We'll give you the disks! Just put Tehutti down!"

Nidhiki raised an eyebrow and smirked. "You said it, not me." And he let go.

Several things happened at once. Vakama and Matau started shouting at Nidhiki. Nidhiki started laughing like a maniac. Vhisola and Ehrye screamed and scrambled away from the edge, only to be grabbed by Krekka. And without thinking, Onewa ran to the edge of the roof and jumped down after Tehutti.

Two seconds after his kamikaze move, Onewa thought to himself, _This was a really stupid idea._ He tried to streamline his body and aim for the flailing Tehutti—much harder in real life than it was in movies—and managed to grab him.

His plan when he'd jumped had been something to do with what Vakama had said about weapons in some other dimension—but he had no idea what his was, or if it'd be useful. But he had to try. He squeezed his eyes shut, ignoring the screaming Tehutti, and concentrated.

Suddenly two chains appeared in his hands, topped by what looked like pickaxes. Hoping his hunch on how to use them was right, he flung one pickaxe at the building and hoped it stuck. It did stick, but their momentum caused them to continue sliding down the side of the building until they slowed enough that they came to a halt. The abrupt stop nearly tore Onewa's arm off, and if he'd been in 'human' form instead of 'Toa' form, there was no doubt in his mind that it would have done just that.

Finally, Tehutti stopped screaming, and stared wide-eyed from Onewa to the ground and back, panting. "What's happening?" he asked quietly.

"We'll explain after we've kicked Nidhiki's butt out of the city again," Onewa growled, trying to sound confident. He had no idea how he was going to get back up. They weren't that far from the ground now, only about six feet, so he dropped Tehutti and looked back up, a plan starting to form. "Get away from here. Go to Mata Nui College—you know where that is, right?" Tehutti nodded. "Go to the residence and find Dume—he's the chief of security. He'll keep you safe. Go on, get out of here!" The archivist nodded again, then turned tail and ran. Onewa looked towards the roof and concentrated once more.

* * *

"Tehutti! Onewa!" Whenua shouted, rushing towards the edge of the building.

Two right arms flung out, stopping him in his tracks. "Ah-ah-ah, Whenua," Nidhiki said pleasantly. "I wouldn't play such a dangerous game with me if I were you. For every minute that goes by that we don't have the disks, one of your pathetic friends dies. And when we run out of them, we'll start on you." Krekka held Vhisola over the edge of the roof. "You have thirty seconds before this girl dies."

"Nidhiki, stop!" Vakama snapped. "I said we'd give you the disks! Just let the—" He paused, choosing his wording carefully. "Leave the others alone!"

The former Air Toa chuckled. "Lhikan never did get around to teaching you how to deal with hostage situations, did he? Honestly, the six—" He pretended to do a head count. "My apologies, the _five_ of you are completely hopeless!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Nokama saw Nuju stiffen. She glanced his way and saw that he was staring straight out into space, his visible eye glowing a deep blue. "Nuju, what's the matter?" she hissed. He didn't respond. "Nuju?"

"Nokama," Nidhiki sighed, "look someone in the eye when he's threatening you, won't you, my dear? Thank you. Oh, by the way...ten seconds. Nine, eight..."

His countdown was interrupted yet again, this time by two things. One, Whenua tackled Krekka, making him drop Vhisola, who grabbed the edge, and Ehrye, who landed on the roof and rolled out of the way, sprinting for the stairs. And two, Onewa rose up right behind Nidhiki and tackled _him_ to the ground.

Krekka snarled and threw Whenua into the door to the stairs, blocking off Ehrye's escape path. Nidhiki and Onewa grappled on the ground while the rest of the Toa split up—Matau attacked Nidhiki, Nuju went to check on Whenua, Nokama pulled Vhisola back onto the roof, and Vakama went after Krekka. The albino was screaming assorted battle cries and charging at the downed Whenua. Vakama threw a fireball at him, purposely missing by inches to distract him. Thankfully, Krekka was definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so it worked. Unfortunately, that meant his newest target was Vakama.

Matau had two of Nidhiki's arms pinned down, while Onewa was trying unsuccessfully to get one to stop attacking him while sitting on the last arm. Nidhiki snarled at them. "Get off me!" he roared.

"Not likely," Onewa grunted. He was promptly swatted in the face by Nidhiki's flailing arm. Now he had two arms free, and he used them to shove Matau off his left arms and push himself back onto his feet.

"Don't play games with me, Toa," he snapped. "I've seen many more battles than you ever will! I have more experience than you could ever dream of having! There is no possible way for you to win! Just give me the disks, and Krekka and I will leave you alone. I swear it!"

Matau lunged at Nidhiki, but his form was sloppy, and the Hunter easily dodged. "You also swore to protect Metru Nui!"

Nidhiki shrugged, blocking a series of punches thrown at him by Onewa. "I'm a liar, what can I say?" He dodged a swing from behind by Matau. "One thing I didn't lie about, though..." He whirled around, grabbed Matau, and threw him into Onewa. They flew backwards and crashed into the air conditioning vent. Onewa looked up, dazed, just in time to see Nidhiki on top of them, two arms poised to strike. "You really shouldn't mess with me."

* * *

Sidorak squirmed uncomfortably. Keelerak had shown one of the powers of the Visorak—they could take the form of any spider to avoid detection. Currently, it was disguised as a _pholcus phalangioides_, or Daddy Long Legs, and was hiding in his shirt so it didn't accidentally get stepped on. Its legs tickled, and not for the first time, Sidorak wondered why he was doing what the spider wanted him to.

_I must be going nuts,_ he thought, turning a corner at Keelerak's instruction. _I actually think I can understand a freaky green spider, and that I'm supposed to lead an army of them? I should just turn around right now._ But he didn't, and soon Keelerak whispered, _"We're here."_

'Here' turned out to be an abandoned building about half a kilometre from his campus. Sidorak pulled the door open and stepped through.

Keelerak scurried out from under his shirt and dropped to the floor, changing back to its Visorak form. _"The lightswitch is on your left," _it informed him.

Sidorak fumbled around for the switch, finally finding it and flicking it on. Light flooded the room, which seemed to be an empty warehouse. The only thing in it was the giant army of spiders.

The student stared, his mouth hanging open. _If I'm crazy,_ he thought, _I'm certainly doing a good job of coming up with psychotic scenarios._

The spiders covered every surface—walls, windows, floors, and ceilings. They were arranged in large groups by colour. There were some blue ones, red ones, black ones, white ones, and brown ones, as well as more green Keelerak. Just like with Keelerak, Sidorak instinctively knew that they were called Boggarak, Vohtarak, Oohnorak, Suukorak, and Roporak, respectively. He shivered. Maybe he really was crazy—coming up with all these names!

All the Visorak suddenly chanted his name once, reverently, like a prayer, before bowing low to the ground. Sidorak swallowed and looked at Keelerak. _"I told you we searched long for you, Majesty," _it said. _"We want you to lead us."_

"I-I...I..." Sidorak was so confused. Thinking you're crazy usually proves you're sane, so did that mean the monster spiders actually were real? But if so, they just wanted him to lead them because in some past life that he knew nothing about, he'd led them. That wasn't enough reason for him to lead. "Keelerak, listen. I'm not a leader. I've spent most of my life being ignored. Who would listen to me?"

_"We would,"_ Keelerak said, gesturing to the horde in front of them. _"We, who would not even listen to the being who created us, would listen to you. Because you are Sidorak King, and we believe in you, Master."_

"The one who created you? Who was that?"

_"We will introduce you to him and tell you more about the Visorak if you say you will lead us once again. The Visorak have always been strong, but we lacked a strong leader. You can give us that, and in return, we can make you a king. Will you accept this role?"_

A king...no more Saturday nights spent alone in his room, watching reruns and eating Cheezies. No more taking flack from Onewa for not being as 'cool' as most people. No more being ridiculed for his interest in bugs and teeth. He had the power, if he had the courage to take it.

He looked out over the horde and smiled—a smile of steel and malice. "I will accept it."

* * *

Whenua groaned and sat up. Nuju was bent over him, shaking him by the shoulders. "Finally. You're missing an epic battle, you know. And you're blocking the only escape route."

The Earth Toa mumbled something and moved out of the way. Ehrye was the first to tear open the door to the stairs and flee. He was closely followed by Vhisola, Nuhrii, and Orkham. "I've told them to go to Dume; they should be fine," Nuju told Whenua. "How's your head?"

"Hurts," Whenua muttered. "Just like everything else. Being thrown into a door does that to you."

"You still okay to fight?"

"I think so."

"Good, because it looks like the others need some help."

Without another word, Nuju turned and ran towards Krekka. Vakama and Nokama were doing a good job of holding him at bay for now, but they were on the defensive. Nuju leapt into the air and grabbed Krekka in a choke hold from behind, wrapping his legs around his stomach.

"Hey! Get off Krekka!" Krekka shouted, reaching behind to try and pry Nuju off.

A jet of water hit him in the stomach, knocking him off balance. Nuju leaped off and rolled to the side, hoping the others were doing better.

Whenua hurried over to Onewa and Matau as quickly as his aching body would let him. They certainly looked worse for wear—Nidhiki really didn't fool around. At the moment, he looked like he was about to finish them off.

Whenua didn't have anything he could do—his Kanohi power was useless in this situation, and there was no underlying earth that he could use that wasn't hundreds of feet below them. He settled for distracting Nidhiki. "Hey! Four-arms!"

But Nidhiki was a seasoned warrior—he knew when he was being goaded. "I'm in the middle of something, Whenua," he hissed back. "But don't worry—your turn is coming."

Desperately, Whenua looked around for something to throw, since he was still too far away to just punch Nidhiki. There wasn't anything handy except for a piece of piping sticking out of the wall. He grabbed it and pulled, and thanks to his enhanced Toa strength, off it came. He chucked it at Nidhiki, not meaning to hurt him, just distract him long enough for Onewa and Matau to get away.

One of Nidhiki's hands snapped out and snatched the flying pipe out of the air. He turned around, bi-coloured eyes blazing. "You are going to regret that," he hissed.

Whenua took up a fighting stance, peering around Nidhiki to see if Matau and Onewa were okay. Onewa was woozily standing up, and with a jolt Whenua realised he was bleeding badly from a shoulder wound. Matau's leg seemed broken.

Something slammed into him and he screamed. He felt like he'd stuck his finger in a wall socket. Prying his eyes open, he saw it was some kind of energy web. "Keep your eyes on the enemy, Whenua," Nidhiki growled. "Didn't Lhikan get around to teaching you that before we kidnapped him?"

As Whenua dropped to the ground, Onewa tackled Nidhiki. "That was _you_?" he shouted.

"Of course it was us," Nidhiki snapped, throwing Onewa off him. "Or, more specifically, it was our employer."

Matau had dragged himself over to Whenua and was trying to figure out how to get him out of the web. He sent a gust of wind at it, blowing it away. "You alright?" he asked quietly as the others fought in the background.

"I'll survive. How's that leg?"

The Toa of Air grimaced. "It'll heal, but we need to get out of here."

"I know. The others are fighting Krekka, but I don't think we'll be much help here. You?"

"Speak for yourself!" So saying, Matau created a miniature twister, shouted at Onewa to get out of the way, and sent it flying at Nidhiki. Nidhiki couldn't dodge in time, and it caught him up. Onewa created as many rocks as he could, sending them into the tornado. They started pelting Nidhiki from all angles.

Whenua pulled himself to his feet and picked up the pipe. "Bring him over here, Matau," he called. Matau directed Nidhiki's windy prison towards him, and Whenua swung the pipe with as much strength as he could muster. Nidhiki flew backwards and crashed into Krekka.

Nokama yelped and ran out of the way as both enemies hurtled towards her. They crashed just short of the edge of the roof. She, Vakama, and Nuju had been battling Krekka the entire time, and he was either invulnerable to pain or just too slow-witted to realise something hurt. He wasn't showing any signs of slowing down. Nuju had twisted his ankle at some point during the fight, and from the looks of things, everyone else was either wounded or starting to run low on stamina. "We need to retreat," she called back, keeping an eye on the two Dark Hunters. Krekka was sitting on Nidhiki, looking around and wondering where the former Toa had gone, while Nidhiki screamed profanities at his partner.

Vakama looked around at his team. Nokama was right. He didn't like that they had to retreat, but from the looks of things, it was their only option. "Come on!" he called, gesturing towards the door. He hurried over and held it open for them, keeping an eye on the Hunters. Finally, after Whenua had helped a limping Matau through the door, Vakama zipped through it and slammed it shut, and they raced down the stairs and out the front door, once again ignoring the security guards.

By this point, Krekka had finally gotten off of Nidhiki and was about to give chase when his partner held up a hand. "Don't worry about them now, Krekka," he said calmly, a little half smile barely disguising the malice in his eyes. "We have what we came for." In his top left hand, he held the Onu-Metru Great Disk.


	12. Reclaim

**And now for something completely different:  
MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING-  
Wait, no, wrong opening. Welcome, friends, to the next installment in Metru Uni. You may be wondering why this took so long when it's not nearly as lengthy as some of its other compatriots. This is because real life is a bitch and God/Mata Nui/deity of choice hates me lately. Or if not a deity, then at least the Fates. Or the Norns. (I know too much about mythologies for my own good, it seems.)  
So yeah, this one is kind of just filler because...um...well, I have a bit of writer's block (the kind where you know what you want but not how to say it), and it's hampering me a little. I did manage to get some Sidorak in there (I've been waiting to write that part FOREVER). Also, just so you know: I am Canadian. According to this, Metru Nui is in Canada, therefore the characters are Canadian. When the word 'leftenant' is used, it is basically the Canadian version of a lieutenant. And since the characters are Canadian, they're using Canadian words.  
LONG LIVE CANADAAAAAA  
Thanks for reading (and being so patient) and please review! Constructive criticism is always highly appreciated.  
*I don't own Bionicle, but character designs, OCs, etc all belong to me. You can use them if you ask first, though.***

Chapter 12: Reclaim

"Now what?"

Vakama looked at Onewa, who had asked the question. Nuju had just given Onewa hell about using his mind control powers on him and Onewa was evidently tired of being yelled at. "I don't know," he admitted. They had stopped in a park and were hiding behind a large statue of a young woman holding a book. Matau was trying very hard to be strong, but it was obvious he was in a lot of pain. "You and Matau need medical attention, but I don't think we can go to a hospital..."

"Yeah, that would go over well," Onewa snorted. He put on a fake high-pitched voice. "What happened to your arm?" His voice went back to normal. "Oh, y'know, an evil four-armed ex-superhero stabbed me because I was in the way of his evil scheme. No big deal."

"Seriously, Onewa," Vakama sighed.

"Hey, Vak."

Vakama looked over. It was Whenua. He'd given Matau's care over to Nokama, while Nuju kept a lookout. "Matau needs someone to look at his leg _now_," he said gravely.

"I _know_!" Vakama snapped. "I just—" He paused. "Wait a second." He switched from Toa form back to regular and pulled his cell phone out of his jeans pocket. "Arisa gave me her phone number," he explained as he thumbed through his contacts. "She said to call her if anything happened." He shushed a protesting Onewa, and finally Arisa answered on the third ring. "Arisa, it's Vakama," he said. "We've got wounded."

"I'll send someone to get you," she replied immediately. "Where are you?"

Vakama gave their location and hung up. "Vak, it's great she wants to help and all," Whenua said warily, "but how much can she possibly do?"

"Yeah," Onewa agreed. "She's just one Matoran—and an old, decrepit one at that."

"Excuse me."

All six of them jumped at a young woman's voice from around the other side of the statue. Looking over at her, they saw she was about sixteen, with straight, waist length black hair. She was wearing a long sleeved, knee length blue dress and sensible navy shoes. "My name is Nixie. I was told that you needed medical attention. I'm to take you to one of our doctors."

Vakama stood up, helped Onewa to his feet, and started following Nixie towards a waiting car. "Oh ye of little faith," he said with a grin.

To say it was difficult to see in the room would be an understatement. Sidorak felt like he'd gone blind. All of a sudden, two red eyes at the back of the room flashed into existence and glared at Sidorak like they were trying to incinerate him with simply a look.

If this 'Makuta' guy was trying to intimidate Sidorak, he was doing a good job.

"Who are you?" The voice was deep and commanding, and Sidorak flinched. Keelerak rubbed against his leg reassuringly.

_"It's alright, Majesty,"_ it said. _"Just tell him what we told you."_

Taking a deep breath, Sidorak nodded. "I...my name is Sidorak King. You are Makuta Teridax?"

"I am. Why do you have one of my Visorak?"

The newly anointed Visorak King bristled. "They're no more your Visorak than they are mine!" he snapped. "They're intelligent, living things, not someone's property! No wonder they wouldn't listen to you!"

"Are you suggesting they listen to you better?" Teridax's voice had become considerably harder, and his eyes narrowed threateningly.

_"Majesty, calm yourself!"_ Keelerak hissed.

Sidorak took another deep breath. "Yes," he said, "I am suggesting that. They sought me out specifically. However, I am here to pledge my allegiance, and thereby that of the Visorak horde, to Makuta Teridax." He knelt onto one knee, placing his right hand over his heart. "Your humble servant, my lord."

"Hold still."

Matau was clenching his teeth so hard he thought he might somehow bite his own jaw off. The Matoran doctor that Nixie had taken them to, Dr. Zemya, was about to set his leg back into position, and it _hurt_. There was a crunch, and Matau screamed as pain shot up his leg.

"I know it hurts," Zemya said kindly, "but if I don't do this it won't heal properly and it might need to be amputated."

Matau gritted his teeth. He was shot full of painkillers and it still felt like hell on a stick. Nixie appeared and handed him a glass of something bright red. Matau took it and downed it in one gulp, then handed it back to Nixie. Already he felt a little better. "What's in that stuff?" he asked.

"Bula juice. It's from a plant native to a tiny island off the coast of Newfoundland. We use it to restore energy." She turned and walked off with the glass, going back into the waiting room.

Onewa looked up when she entered. His shoulder had been bandaged hastily, and he was currently shirtless while one of Zemya's interns cleaned the wound and applied pressure. "Hey, uh, Nixie?" She looked over. "Where are we?"

"Dr. Zemya's office."

"Yeah, I know that, but I kind of passed out on the way here, so..."

She shook her head as if to say, "Men." "This is Ga-Metru, close to the center. Now if you'll excuse me..." She started to leave, when Onewa stopped her.

"Just one more question." Nixie paused, then turned back to look at him again. "Who exactly are you?"

Vakama leaned forward. He'd been wondering the same thing.

"I believe you are familiar with my grandmother, Arisa," Nixie said. "I am studying under her to be an astrologer. And right now I have business to attend to." She disappeared into one of the back rooms.

Onewa snorted. "Her bedside manner needs work."

Nuju, whose twisted ankle was being bandaged by another intern, had wrinkled his nose at the word 'astrologer.' He had never had any patience for that kind of thing. At first he thought Nixie would be alright, but really? An astrologer? Astronomy was where the real science and credibility lay.

Matau chose that moment to hobble out on his new crutches. His leg was bound up in a cast. "Who wants to sign?" he asked jokingly.

Nokama stood up. "How are you feeling, Matau?"

"Never better!" he chirped. He stumbled and Nokama caught him. "Sorry."

She set him back on his feet. "It's okay." She looked at Zemya, who had entered behind him. "How soon will he be back to normal?"

Zemya shook his head. "Hard to say. It could be as little as two weeks, or as much as eight. The damage was extensive, but the bula juice seems to be working." He handed Matau a slip of paper. "Here's your prescription. Take it to the pharmacy next door and start taking your medication immediately. That, combined with regular bula intake, should help get you back to normal quicker."

Vakama put his head in his hands. At least two weeks until Matau was better? They didn't have that kind of time! Who knew when, where, or how the Morbuzakh would strike next? They needed to track it down and get rid of it as quickly as possible, but they couldn't risk it if they were missing a member.

"How about my arm?" Onewa asked.

"Your damage was less extensive," Zemya said, handing Onewa another slip of paper. "I prescribe bed rest and two of the pills on that paper every morning for a week, along with regular bula intake, of course."

"If bula is so good for you," Whenua interjected, "how come we've never heard of it before?"

Zemya shrugged. "It's a fairly new discovery, and we Matoran seem to be the only ones who find any credibility in it. It does work, but most doctors hesitate to prescribe it since it is so new."

Nixie suddenly burst into the room. "Toa!" she cried. "The Morbuzakh!"

The Toa that weren't already standing leapt to their feet. "I don't think so," Zemya said, forcing Matau and Onewa to sit down. "In your current states, you're not fit for fighting." Vakama wanted to hit something. _Two_ Toa, a third of their number, were incarcerated. How were they supposed to stop the Morbuzakh now?

But it was their duty, so the remaining four Toa hurried off in the direction Nixie said there had been a sighting.

Dume was typing something in his office when Vakama found him. "Ah, Vakama," the Turaga said, barely glancing up from his screen. "I sent the people you sent to me to a Matoran safe house; they should be fine there. Is there a problem?"

Vakama found it hard to believe that Dume wouldn't know about Nidhiki and Krekka, especially if he'd talked to the other five like he'd said, but he relayed the information anyway. Dume's eyes nearly bugged out of his head and he whirled to face Vakama, leaping out of his chair. "_What?_"

"Nidhiki is back. And he's got another Hunter with him, a big albino named Krekka." He explained the events of the day, from finding the disks to the fight with the Hunters to Nixie and Zemya.

Dume looked like he was going to incinerate something. "The Shadowed One has broken his treaty!" he declared. "We must summon Toa from other cities—the Dark Hunters fall _now_!"

Vakama had never seen Dume so furious. "We can't do that," he explained lamely. "Arisa said—"

"You know Arisa?" Dume's features immediately softened. "What did she say?"

"Er—she believes someone in the city hired them. Therefore, since they're here on business and not trying to take over Metru Nui, we can't exactly declare war on the Hunters. We can stop Nidhiki and Krekka...but unless more Hunters came in on non-business terms, we can't do anything else."

The Turaga shook his head. "Arisa always was a smart one."

"Sir, how do you know her?"

"Oh, Arisa and I were...colleagues...in the past. Anyway, that's not important. There's got to be a way to get rid of the Dark Hunters—at least the ones in the city. I have no jurisdiction outside of Metru Nui, but I can ask for some Toa from other cities to come keep an eye on the two of them while you concentrate on the Morbuzakh. You're sure it's just the two?" Vakama nodded. "I see. Well, thank you, Vakama." Vakama turned to go—that math homework wouldn't do itself—when Dume said, "Actually, there's something else I wanted to speak with you about, Vakama." Reluctantly, Vakama turned back around. Dume was looking back at his computer screen. "I've been doing some research lately—" He paused, then smacked the computer. "Blasted machine...alright, there we go. I've been doing some research lately on an artefact called the Kanohi Vahi. Ever heard of it?" Vakama shook his head. "There's a good reason for that. It's a large part of Matoran culture, but no one knows how to make it or where to find it."

"What exactly is it?" Vakama asked, intrigued.

"It translates directly into 'Mask of Time' in English."

Vakama stared. "Mask of _what_? I know that Kanohi give Toa extra powers and all, but don't you think a Mask of Time is a little...I don't know, extreme? What if the wrong person got their hands on it? Also, how can it be a physical object? Toa have their mask powers...um...automatically built in when they transform or something, don't they?"

"Most, yes," Dume said, nodding. "But if presented with a Matoran-made Kanohi, they can use said Kanohi as though it was the one they were born with."

"Er...how, exactly?"

"It's a long and complicated process," Dume said gruffly, "but mostly it involves absorbing the mask's essence or something...I'm not entirely sure; I've never tried it myself. To answer your other question, about the wrong people getting their hands on it..." Vakama nodded. "That is exactly why we need to find it. And if we can't find it, we need to find out how to make it so that the recipe, if you will, doesn't get out either. From what I've found out, the most stories associated with the Vahi and its creation are linked to Metru Nui, making it our responsibility."

Vakama swallowed. "So we have to find this thing fast, then, and keep it as safe as possible. But what's stopping someone from just making another one?"

"I think it's only possible for one to ever exist. There are only the components in the world to make one."

A sudden thought struck Vakama. "This Vahi...you don't think that it's what Nidhiki and Krekka are after, do you? I mean, what their employer wants? I know they said they wanted the Great Disks, but maybe they're also after the Mask of Time? If it's as valuable as you say it is..."

"That is a distinct possibility." Dume rose and took Vakama by the shoulders, staring at him intently. "Vakama, you must promise me something. If, during your quest, you learn the whereabouts of the Vahi or how to make it, you must bring it to me. After that, I will destroy it. It's too dangerous an artefact to leave lying around, even with the best security the Matoran can offer. Give me your word, Vakama."

Vakama nodded, a little intimidated by Dume's sudden seriousness. "I...yes, sir. You have my word."

Dume's face softened with relief, and he nodded and released Vakama's shoulders. "Alright. Thank you, Vakama." He sat back down. "And remember," Dume called as Vakama took his leave, "a Toa never breaks his word."

When Vakama returned to his room, he found Whenua tearing it apart. "Nua, what are you doing?" Vakama yelped, picking up discarded items and returning them to their rightful places. This was so unlike Whenua. Vakama would have expected it from Matau, maybe, but not the neat-and-orderly Earth Toa.

Whenua whirled and grabbed Vakama by the shoulders, shaking him back and forth like a rag doll. "It's gone! Vakama, it's gone! It disappeared during our battle earlier today!"

"Stop shaking me!" Vakama wrenched himself out of Whenua's grasp. "Get in bed; Dr. Zemya said to rest as much as possible."

"No, Vakama, you don't understand—"

Vakama glared at him. "Bed. Now." Whenua went back into his room and sat on the bed. _Someone's been taking Nuju Lessons,_ he thought grumpily.

"Now, what disappeared?" Vakama asked.

Whenua hung his head. "The Onu-Metru Kanoka."

"WHAT?"

Everyone stared at Vakama and Whenua. Vakama had just told them the bad news and Whenua was sitting with his head in his hands.

"I _told_ you to be careful with it!" Nuju snapped. Now he understood why he'd been so obsessed with it earlier.

"I checked it right before we went into the battle with Nidhiki and Krekka!" Whenua shouted, raising his head. "It was right there in my bag!"

"Which means that they probably have it now," Nokama concluded. "We have to get it back!"

"They have what they want for now," Nuju mused, "so they've probably gone into hiding."

"But they wanted all six disks," Matau said. "They only have one so far—right?"

Nuju nodded. "True, but if their objective is simply to keep us from destroying the Morbuzakh, they only need one disk to do that. And since they admitted to having kidnapped Lhikan, and his disappearance is connected to the Morbuzakh, they are most likely just trying to keep us from destroying the Morbuzakh."

"We don't even know how to destroy it," Vakama said mournfully. "Every time we fight it, we just manage to beat it back to wherever it came from."

"I have an idea about that."

Everyone looked at Onewa, who had been uncharacteristically silent through the entire conversation. "See, whenever it shows up, it has to come from _somewhere_," he continued. "So if we can follow it through its self-made tunnels, maybe we can track it to its source and kill it off from there." Then he shrugged. "But first we need the disk. So we need to track Nidhiki and Krekka down first. Any ideas?"

"If they kidnapped Lhikan like Nidhiki said they did," Nokama said thoughtfully, "they're probably holding him somewhere. An abandoned building, or an apartment somewhere, or a hotel room, or—"

"Basically, anywhere," Matau interrupted.

"But they wouldn't want Lhikan to be too comfortable," Nokama continued. "It's probably somewhere with lots of different rooms, like a warehouse or jail, and it would have to be somewhere people don't often visit."

"There have to be hundreds of those kinds of places around Metru Nui," Whenua said. "And who's to say they haven't already skipped town to prevent us from ever getting the Kanoka back?"

There was a knock at the door, and Vakama went to answer it while the others debated amongst themselves. He opened the door, then let out an involuntary gasp, drawing the attention of the others.

On the other side of the door was Krekka.

"Krekka! Where is that idiot?"

Lhikan watched as Nidhiki tore apart the temporary base he and Krekka had set up, searching for his lost partner. Finally, he decided to throw him a bone before he lashed out at the closest person—in this case, Lhikan. "I think he left," he called to the dark-haired man.

Nidhiki whirled around, and in one swift movement he was at the front of Lhikan's cell, holding him off the ground by his throat. "Where?"

Lhikan kicked and squirmed and struggled to breathe. "H-he didn't say," he coughed. Nidhiki threw him to the ground and stalked off, muttering all the way. "I think he said something about the rest of the Great Disks!" Lhikan called.

This drew a snarl from Nidhiki. "I told him to stay put!" he bellowed, storming out of their stronghold.

Lhikan looked around. There were no other Hunters in sight. Time to try Escape Plan Number 1.

"Ungh!"

Vakama was backhanded across the room and Krekka stepped inside. "What do you want?" Nokama snapped.

"Nidhiki said stay put, but Krekka wants disks!"

Vakama sat up, rubbing his jaw where Krekka had hit him. Not for the first time, he wondered if the Dark Hunter was actually a robot in disguise.

"How did you get in here?" Nuju asked warily, taking up a defensive position.

"None of your business!" He rushed at Nuju, who punched him in the gut. Krekka didn't even seem to notice, and he bowled Nuju over.

He stood up, coughing. Then he started to laugh. Everyone stared at him. Nuju didn't laugh. It just _wasn't done_. Even Krekka looked a little confused, though it wasn't hard to confuse him. "The joke's on you, Krekka," Nuju crowed. "We don't have the rest of the disks! They're somewhere you'll never get them: a safe in an impenetrable stronghold!" Vakama frowned. That wasn't where they kept their Kanoka; they were in another dimension. What was Nuju doing? "And you! Where do you keep _your_ Kanoka, Hunter? In some kind of bag, no doubt."

"Nuh-uh!" Krekka proudly produced the Onu-Metru Great Disk from behind his back. "Krekka keeps it here at all times!"

Matau and Nokama lunged for it, but Krekka slapped them away. Then he frowned. There was something tugging at the Disk. He looked, but there was nothing holding it. It was suddenly wrenched out of his hands, and as he jumped for it, it floated away towards Whenua, who looked just as surprised as Krekka. Onewa blocked Krekka's path, crashing to the ground under the Hunter, as Whenua grabbed the Kanoka and looked at Nuju. His eyes were glowing and he was smirking. Nuju transformed into Toa form and said, "Gentlemen, let's start hitting him."

Onewa was still grappling with Krekka, but he was losing. Every move he made sent shocks of pain shooting into his shoulder; now he knew why Dr. Zemya had said to avoid combat. Suddenly Krekka cried out in pain and shoved Onewa away, standing up. As he turned to face his attacker—Vakama—Onewa saw that the back of his sweater was on fire. _There's no way he's human,_ he thought.

Vakama was thinking the same thing as Krekka turned to him, but didn't have time to dwell on it. He sent another blast of fire his way at the same time as Matau sent a gust of wind. The result was Krekka falling backwards, hitting the counter and knocking one of Whenua's plates onto the floor, where it broke. Krekka stepped on it, but didn't seem to notice.

"Krekka!"

Something whooshed into the room, and the next thing Vakama knew, he was pinned against a wall with a web of pure energy. Matau and Nuju had the same problem. Onewa had been propped up against a wall and was being taken care of by Whenua, which left Matau to face this new threat alone.

Luckily, Nidhiki didn't seem interested in him.

"What the hell are you doing, you blithering idiot?" he bellowed at Krekka. "I specifically told you to stay put!"

Krekka hung his head. "Krekka wanted to help Nidhiki…"

"Well next time, don't," Nidhiki snapped. "Come on, we're leaving."

"But they—!"

"I don't care! We're leaving!" The two of them left, Nidhiki still ignoring Krekka's protests. Matau hobbled over to a chair and sat down, waving a hand to send a breeze that would blow away the webs keeping his friends captive. The three of them dropped to the ground, Nuju wincing as he landed on his tender foot. Vakama took stock. Thankfully, from the looks of things, most of the damage had been done to the room. There were a couple of scorch marks on the wall (it really was a miracle they hadn't set off any fire alarms) and of course Whenua's broken plate, but that seemed to be all. He looked around at his team. They all seemed to be looking at him.

"We've got to get rid of the Morbuzakh," he said. "Now."

Red eyes glanced at the woman standing near the back of the room. "I don't like it," said the owner of those eyes. He had been studying the files he could find on his new Visorak King: Sidorak Alphonse King, age 19, from a small town called Stelt, Alberta, Dental Hygene student with a passion for spiders and insects. In short, he had no experience with leading or conquering.

"What's that, my lord?" the woman asked. Her voice was smooth and calm, but it belied her treatourous nature. "What is there not to like? He seems loyal enough—and stupid enough that, if need be, he could easily be bent to your will."

"He is still an outsider!" he roared, rising and stalking the length of the room. "An _outsider_, a man not raised into the Brotherhood, leading _my_ Visorak? I won't stand for it, Roodaka!"

Roodaka bowed, her long dark hair obscuring her face. "What would you have me do, my lord?"

He turned back to her, a sly smile creeping onto his lips. "I will assign you as his leftenant. He will have no choice but to accept you—on threat of death. You will gain the trust and respect of the hordes and, when the time is right, wrench control from him. What you do with Sidorak himself is inconsequential."

Roodaka bowed again, her orange eyes almost glowing with anticipation. "Yes, my lord. It shall be done."


	13. Prepare

**Well, lookie who's decided to do something for once /shot  
This has actually been up on deviantART for almost a week now; I ran out of time to post it here and I am _so sorry_. Things have been hectic lately (graduation, job search, job get, and now the search for a car I can afford), so this is sort of short and vignette-y.** **Again, I apologize, but** **real life is more important to me at the moment (sadly) and the next update should not only not take as long, but actually have a _point_! Remember when this story had one of those?  
So yeah, vignettes and stuff. Please enjoy, even if you don't like this style of chapter!** **Thank you all for being so patient, and especially to my brother PurpleBanana86 for all his help.  
Thanks for reading, and please review! Constructive criticism is always highly appreciated.  
*I don't own Bionicle, but character designs, OCs, etc all belong to me. You can use them if you ask first, though.***

Chapter 13: Prepare

Arisa hung up the phone with a heavy sigh. Nixie looked up from her star charts, concerned. "Grandmother?" she asked. "Are you alright?"

The old woman shook her head as another sigh shook her thin body. "I don't know how much longer we can keep this up, my dear."

Nixie frowned, confused. "What do you mean?"

"I just got off the phone with our police contact in Po-Metru," Arisa said, indicating the phone. "A large section of his business district was just destroyed by the Morbuzakh, and he needed a convincing cover story to steer the investigation towards." Her shoulders drooped. "I didn't have one for him."

Her granddaughter's eyes widened. "Then—"

"If this continues much longer, I don't know how much longer we'll be able to keep it covered up. I've seen this coming, but I don't know how to stop it. Even if the Toa do eventually defeat the Morbuzakh, there will always be others. We still don't know where the Morbuzakh came from, if someone created it or if it's just some sort of mutation. We don't know if there's more where it came from. And that's not to mention that the Dark Hunters are still out there somewhere, struggling to gain a foothold in the city. If they continue to be thwarted, I fear they won't continue to be so subtle." The old woman put her head in her hands. "It can't happen! Everything we've worked so hard for...centuries worth of Matoran working their entire lives to keep Toa and Mata Nui a secret...it can't become undone now!"

"Then the Toa will simply have to triumph," Nixie said matter-of-factly.

"I fear we ask the impossible of them," Arisa replied morosely. "One inexperienced Toa team against a far more experienced world...even the other cities can't send us more Toa now; they're all facing their own crises, and the earliest we can expect help is in two weeks. We must rely on the Toa Metru, and I fear that if they can't beat two Dark Hunters then they may be in serious trouble."

Nixie rose and crossed the room to her grandmother, wrapping her arms around her shoulders in a hug. "It will be alright, Grandmother. You'll see."

Arisa shook her head again. "No. If this is not resolved quickly and quietly..." She paused, drawing a shaky breath. "Toa may need to reveal their existence to the world, if only to save it."

* * *

Onewa sat propped up in bed, his arm still in its sling, trying to type an essay with one hand. Damn that Nidhiki, making him miss even more class! He was never going to graduate at this rate!

There was a click, and the door to the hallway opened partway. Sidorak stuck his head inside, as though he was a teenager sneaking home after curfew and he was making sure his overprotective parents weren't waiting up for him.

"Hi, Siddy," Onewa called with a grin. Sidorak _hated_ being called Siddy.

But instead of glaring at him like usual, Sidorak just about jumped out of his skin, snapping his head around to look at him with wide-eyed fear. "H-h-h-hello," he squeaked. "What're you doing here?"

"In case you forgot, I do actually live here," Onewa retorted. "What's the matter with you?"

"N-nothing." Sidorak dropped his gaze to the floor, shuffling into the room with his right hand behind his back. "I'm just tired. That's all." Raising his head, he finally noticed Onewa's sling. "Onewa!"

Onewa started at the sudden change of voice. "What?!"

"Your arm!"

"Yes, I have two, just like you."

"No, it's...it's broken!"

Onewa sighed. "No, it's not. I just dislocated my shoulder playing baseball."

Sidorak looked relieved. "Oh. Good. Well, not _good_, but—"

"What's behind your back?" Onewa interrupted. Sidorak was still hiding his right hand.

The pale youth immediately clammed up. "Nothing."

"Oh, come on. I promise not to laugh."

Sidorak drew himself up to his full height. His brown eyes seemed to flash red dangerously as he glared at his roommate. "I said nothing!" he bellowed.

Onewa flinched a little as Sidorak stalked into his room and slammed the door. _What's with him?_ the brunet thought. In the few months they'd been roommates, that was the first time he'd raised his voice or shown any sort of backbone. It was almost like Sidorak had become an entirely different person.

In his room, Sidorak took his bandaged right hand from behind his back and cradled it gently. How did Roodaka and Keelerak make creating Rhotuka spinners look so easy? Roodaka had said that cuts magically opening on hands were normal for someone not used to the "art of Rhotuka" and that he would get better with time and practice. But Sidorak didn't have time. He had to be worthy of leading the Visorak now, before they decided he wasn't the right one after all. Before Teridax decided to get rid of him for good.

* * *

Vakama stuck a glass towards his roommate. Whenua looked at the bright red juice, then back up at Vakama. "No."

"Whenua—"

"No! That bula stuff is gross! Besides, I'm fine."

"Nua, you got thrown into a door."

"I've been worse."

"You got trapped in an energy web twice."

"It just tickled a little."

"Yeah, and that's why you were screaming blue murder."

"I don't need you to nanny me, Vak," Whenua snapped. "I told you, I'm fine. I used to box, okay? I've been worse."

"Don't care. Doctor's orders are bed rest and bula juice, so that's what you're going to do."

"But I have class—"

"You only have Introducing Libraries today, which you hate anyway. Besides, missing one class because of your health—"

"Three classes."

Vakama paused. "What?"

"I missed Cataloguing and Circulation yesterday and the day before because we were off looking for the Kanoka. Vak, I seriously can't miss any more classes or I'm gonna be behind in three for my four courses!"

"Wait, you only have four courses?!"

Whenua couldn't help but grin smugly. "Advanced standing. I have a university degree, remember? I get to skip anything I already took at a higher level, like English."

"Ass."

"Don't be jealous. Anyway, _I_ wouldn't stop _you_ from going to class if this happened to you."

"Yes you would. You're such a mother hen it's not even funny."

Whenua scowled. "I am not."

"Yes, yes you are. Don't make me get someone up here to babysit you while I'm in class. I'll do it, you know."

Reluctantly, Whenua picked up the glass of bula juice. "Ass."

Vakama flashed him a smug grin as he headed out the door, binder under his arm. "Don't be jealous."

* * *

Lhikan screamed as pain wracked his body. As the energy web faded and the pain subsided, he looked up at his tormenter from his place on the floor. Nidhiki smiled coldly at him. "Now, Lhikan," he said patronizingly, "we've talked about this before, haven't we?" He shot another web at his captive, who cried out again. "If you don't try to escape, I don't have to punish you. You're just making this harder on yourself, you know."

The Turaga gritted his teeth against the pain. This was the fourth time he'd tried to escape and the fourth time he'd been caught, dragged back, and tortured. The first three times Krekka had just punched him into oblivion, but this time Nidhiki had taken it upon himself to inflict the punishment personally. The web faded again. "If you hate me so much," Lhikan panted, "why not just kill me and get it over with?"

Nidhiki was on him in a second, grabbing him by the throat and forcing him into the ground. "Don't think for a second that the thought ever leaves my mind," he snarled. "I want nothing more than to see you dead and Metru Nui in ruins. But my employer, for whatever reason, thinks you're valuable, and so if I'm to keep up my contract I can't kill you. Rest assured, though, that once he's pried whatever secrets he wants from you, I will kill you. And I will enjoy every minute of it."

He released Lhikan's throat. "Remember this pain for the next time you think about escaping," he ordered. "It will be doubled if you ever try again." He stalked off, slamming and locking the cage door behind him. "Krekka! Come!" he barked, and Krekka silently trotted off behind him, leaving Lhikan alone with his pain and his thoughts.

* * *

The Morbuzakh retreated into the hole it had come from and a group of Matoran rushed in to disguise the hole and keep anyone from falling into it. Nokama sighed and stretched out her back. "How do you think the others are doing?" she asked Vakama.

He shrugged. Two Morbuzakh attacks had sprung up at the same time, one on the outskirts of Ga-Metru and one near a power plant in Le-Metru, so he and Nuju each led a team of two to the attack point. He'd made sure that both groups had either an ice wielder or a healthy supply of freeze disks, since ice was the only thing that seemed to have any effect on the vines whatsoever.

"I'm sure they're fine," he said. "They would've called for backup if they—"

Vakama's cell phone went off. Nokama politely turned away while he answered it. "Hello?"

"Where the hell are you?!" Nuju sounded ticked. "I've been trying to call you for the past ten minutes!"

"We sort of had our own problems," Vakama snapped back. "What's—" He stopped short at the sound of something exploding on the other end of the line. "What was that?"

"Nothing. Whenua had to blow up part of the street."

"You blew up—!? Why—never mind. I don't want to know."

"Let's just say it's been a long day." In the background, there was the sound of tires screeching and a large crash. "We've set up a detour so people will think it's just construction, but we could use a little help here!"

"We'll be there as soon as we can," Vakama promised.

"Good. I don't think the Matoran will be able to cover this up as a student film again if it goes on much longer."

"Where exactly are you?"

Nuju gave him the street name and he hung up. "Slight change of plan," Vakama told Nokama. "Guess who gets to fight evil plants in Le-Metru now?"

Nokama sighed. "Joy."

"Nokama?"

The Water Toa froze and turned slowly. A girl a little younger than her was standing behind her. She had a short brown bob cut and was wearing jeans and a puffy blue vest over a long sleeved pink shirt. "What're you doing here?" she asked.

Nokama grinned weakly. _Crap,_ she thought. _It's not like we can turn back to normal mode now!_ "Hi, Gali," she said. "Vakama here and I were just...uh..."

"We're LARPing," Vakama explained.

Nokama gaped at him. "We're what now?!" Vakama shot her a look that said "I'll explain later."

Gali grinned. "Cool! I didn't know you were into that, Kama!"

"Neither did I," Nokama muttered. "Gali, this is my friend Vakama. Vakama, this is Gali, my little sister."

Vakama gave a small smile. "Nice to meet you."

"Ditto. So are you almost done your LARPing for today or what?"

"Actually, we have to go meet the rest of the team in Le-Metru," Vakama explained. "Something came up and we have to move; you know how it is."

Gali shrugged. "Not really. I just have friends of friends who LARP. Anyway, it was great seeing you, Kama!" She gave her sister a hug. "Come home soon, okay? Dad's driving me up the wall with you gone!"

Nokama nodded. "I'll try. See you later."

"Okay, okay, bye already. Nice meeting you, Vak!" With that, Gali took off in the direction of the closest mall.

"We'd better get over to Le-Metru quickly before someone else comes along," Vakama said.

"I know a shortcut. Now you'd better explain what the hell 'LARPing' is. It better not be anything perverted, Vakama."

The Fire Toa turned a lovely shade of dark red. "N-no! Nothing like that, I swear!"

* * *

By the time the two of them had arrived at the attack point, Matau and Onewa were helping out as well. "What are you two doing here?" Nokama asked.

"Doc Zemya gave us both a full bill of health," Onewa grunted, fending off a vine with his new weapons, "but that's not important right now! We're having some slight difficulties here, in case you hadn't noticed!"

Vakama loaded a freeze disk into his launcher and shot it at the base of one of the vines. It froze, but only partway up, and the end of the vine continued to swing wildly. Matau flew past it, holding something metal, and the unfrozen part suddenly fell to the ground, twitching a few times before laying still.

Matau landed next to Nokama, who was using a wall of water to block attacks. He brandished his new weapons—twin blades about the length of his arm. "Pretty cool, right?" he grinned. "I call them aero slicers!"

A vine came up from behind, grabbed him, and tossed him into a building. "Sure," Nokama muttered with a smile as she threw up another wall. "Pretty cool, all right." She reached down and pulled out her own weapons—a pair of fan-like blades attached to elasticized steel wire handles that she'd discovered in the Ga-Metru battle earlier. She cast one at the vine that had thrown Matau and it sunk into it, holding it in place while she chopped at it with the other.

Whenua and Vakama stood back to back, surrounded. Vakama was rapidly running out of freeze disks, and after the incident at the Ta-Metru Meltdown Centre he was worried about the consequences of using other types of disks on the Morbuzakh and hadn't brought any. Whenua, on the other hand, was still going strong. Having discovered his own weapons a few days ago, he was using the two large handheld drills as bats, swatting at the attacking Morbuzakh and chipping away at them in the process.

Nuju was exhausted, having drained most of his energy earlier in the fight. Onewa was covering him while he tried to regain some of his strength, and Nokama was coming in to help, but so far Nuju was still pretty tired. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep this up.

There was a flash from just down the street, and a giant suddenly lumbered into view. It was slightly blue in colour, carrying a club and wearing nothing but a loincloth made of skin. Nuju stared. "Matau?" he called. "Tell me that's you."

The giant grinned at him, swatting a vine casually with his club. "None other! Guess what I am!"

Nuju didn't spare a moment for thought. "A Jotun from Norse Mythology."

"Nope! A Frost Giant from Thor!"

"They're the same thing!"

Ignoring him, Matau drew in a deep breath and blew it out across the battlefield. Most of the vines froze solid instantly, and the ones that didn't quickly withdrew. Matau shrank to regular size and looked like himself again. The others hurried over to him, Whenua getting there first and catching him as he collapsed. "Did we win?" he mumbled.

Onewa nodded. "Yep. Good job, man."

"I never thought I'd be saying this," Nuju sighed, "but thank you, Matau."

Matau grinned weakly. "Today is a great victory for Stinky Loincloth Man! And Friends."

"Are you okay?" Nokama asked. "You look exhausted."

Matau sat up. "I think it takes more energy to transform into big stuff. I'll be fine."

"Good," Vakama said. He smiled. "We can't have you laid up in bed again so soon after getting out. And I think it's about time we took the fight to the Morbuzakh's home turf."

The others looked at him. "What do you mean?" Whenua asked.

"Nokama and I were talking on the way here," he explained. "If the Morbuzakh hates the cold but fire has no effect on it, then where is it most likely to set up shop?"

"Ta-Metru," Nuju said.

"Exactly." Vakama's eyes hardened. "This craziness has gone on long enough. We're going to find where it's coming from and beat it at its source. We move out tomorrow morning at dawn. And bring the Kanoka. Dume said they'd stop the Morbuzakh—let's see if he's right."


	14. Challenge

**Yeeeeah, I need to start uploading things here more often...  
****This chapter has been up on devianART for almost a month now. The moral of the story is to check dA if you want to see anything with any kind of frequency.  
****I have recently been thinking of leaving because I never go on here anymore, spending most of my time on dA instead. Should I officially decide to leave the site, I will give notice, mark all my stories as completed, and leave my work here with a link to my dA page on my profile. If you don't have a deviantART account, you can still access the site, you just won't be able to comment. Besides, my dA account has a whole bunch of other cool stuff on it, like a comic version of the first chapter and a half of this very story (it will likely never be continued, but whatever), character designs and other art for Metru Uni, and a Pokemon comic (currently about 18 pages long). If I do leave , it will likely be shortly after posting chapter 15 of Metru Uni. Like I said, I don't go on this site much anymore, deviantART lets me do more than just fanfiction, and to be honest I hate 's posting, reviewing, and messaging systems.  
****Big long ranty paragraph aside, please enjoy the next chapter of Metru Uni. It's taken a lot longer than I meant for it to, but hey at least it's done right?  
Thanks for your patience and understanding.  
~A Girl Named Ed  
*****I don't own Bionicle, but character designs, OCs, etc all belong to me. You can use them if you ask first, though.***

Chapter 14: Challenge

_Vakama..._

Vakama mumbled something about ocelots and rolled over.

_Vakama, listen to me._

The redhead opened his eyes and found himself in a forge of some kind. He looked around, confused. He knew that he knew the forge, but he couldn't place from where. Then it dawned on him. _This is the forge I saw when Lhikan was taken,_ he thought.

"That's right."

It was the voice of an old man, the same old man that Vakama had been hearing in his head since the first Morbuzakh attack. Turning, he saw a red robot, different from the other two he'd seen—shorter than the tall one, taller than the short one, hunched over, old-looking, and carrying a staff. He was about the height of Vakama's waist.

He looked calmly up at Vakama with glowing gold eyes, eyes that were tired and time-weary. "Do you know who I am?" he asked.

Vakama nodded slowly. "I...I think so. I wasn't sure at first, but some of the things you've said...'our' transformation. 'I don't know her.' 'The first time.' I've thought about them, and I think I've figured it out." The robot looked at him expectantly. "You are the first Toa Vakama."

"Well," the robot chuckled. "It certainly has been a long time since anyone's called me a Toa. But yes, I am the first Vakama. I am Turaga Vakama."

All the frustration that Vakama had been feeling over the visions and strange voices bubbled over and spilled out. "Why?" he shouted. "Why are you torturing me like this? I don't want these visions; they make me feel like a freak! Please, stop doing this to me!"

Turaga Vakama shook his head. "I know exactly how you feel," he sighed, "and I would stop them if I could. But I cannot. They are not my doing."

"But then how are you—"

"How am I here?" He smiled. "We have a link, you and I. It was weak at first, but it has since grown stronger so that I may now contact you in your dreams, rather than only during your visions."

"Stronger? How? I don't understand."

"I don't either, really," the Turaga admitted. "You are my first incarnation that I've been able to contact at all, the only one I've even been aware of, in fact. All I know is that we have this link, and we should make use of it."

Vakama shifted uncomfortably. The thought of sharing head space with an alien robot from the past (or was it the future?) was disturbing, but there was no denying that it could be useful to know what had happened originally. "Well...where do the visions come from, then?"

Turaga Vakama shook his head. "That I cannot say. The reason may be different from the reason for my own visions. They may be messages from the Great Spirit, or a trick by someone who wants you dead, or they may just be signs of madness. It's difficult to tell." His form flickered briefly, then solidified again. "Ah, I believe it is time for you to wake up."

"Wait! There's so much more you need to tell me! Where is the Morbuzakh? Who were Nidhiki and Krekka hired by? Why has Dume been so obsessed with the Vahi?"

"The future can only share so much with the past," Turaga Vakama said, and things started to get fuzzy. "One thing I can tell you, however, is that you should be careful who you trust." Vakama started to ask what he meant, but then his head started spinning and he fell backwards...

_Thud!_

Vakama thrashed around and pulled himself out from under the covers. He was on the floor, tangled in his bed sheets. He looked groggily at his alarm clock. There was still about an hour until the Toa Metru were supposed to meet up to go after the Morbuzakh, but he didn't have time to go back to sleep. He had plans to go over and things to think about. Why had the other Vakama said that he should be careful who he trusted? What did he know that he wasn't telling him? And most importantly, how much should he share with the others?

* * *

Onewa stretched and looked around. The six of them were gathered just outside the residence doors, doing a last re-check of their equipment. The sun was just starting to peek over the skyline of Metru Nui. He knew that the only people up now besides them were people working early morning shifts, drunks nursing hangovers, and crazy runners training for marathons. His younger brother Pohatu was one such runner, and Onewa found himself wondering if he was up yet. He and Pohatu had never really gotten along, but they were still brothers, and given the dangers they could face when going to find the King Root, he couldn't help but wonder if he'd ever see that annoying goofball again.

The Toa of Stone happened to glance at Nuju as they boarded the Ta-Metru bus. He looked apprehensive, which surprised Onewa. Nuju was very calm and collected, never outwardly showing any emotions. "What's up?" he asked. Nuju didn't answer—he was off in his own little world. "Hey, Nuju." Nuju shook himself out of it and looked up at Onewa. "What's wrong? You look worried."

He shook his head. "I just have this...feeling. I just feel like something really awful is going to happen."

"With the Morbuzakh?"

"No, not with that. It's different. Almost like we've overlooked something."

Whenua overheard them and leaned back to join the conversation. "Well, we've triple-checked that we have all the disks this time, so everything should be okay as long as we don't run into Nidhiki and Krekka or the Vahki." He looked at Onewa. "Any idea why they told you to take the disk for them yet?"

Onewa shook his head. "None. If they're supposed to be just law enforcement drones, what could they need the Kanoka for?"

"Never underestimate robots," Whenua warned. "My friend Onepu really likes science fiction books and movies, and robots keep turning evil in them. Maybe there's something wrong with their programming."

"Or maybe whoever data-programmed them in the first place is secretly bad-evil," Matau interrupted. "They could be the ones who hired Nidhiki and Krekka and are using the Vahki as a backup in case they lost-failed—which, of course, they did."

"Don't be too sure we've seen the last of them," Nokama warned. "They'll be back, I'm sure of it."

Nuju's frown deepened. "I don't think it's really them we have to worry about. They're just lackeys. Powerful lackeys, yes, but still only lackeys. The one we need to concern ourselves with is their employer."

Vakama had been very quiet all morning, but he finally spoke up. "I think," he said quietly, "that we need to be very, very careful who we trust." The others looked at him, and he raised his gaze from the floor to look at each of them in turn. "It could be anyone. Even someone close to us, someone we'd never expect."

"Like who?" Matau asked.

"I don't know. But we should...we should just be careful, okay?"

Nokama studied his face carefully. "Vakama, did you have another vision you aren't telling us about?"

Vakama looked back at the floor. "No, I just...it's weird, okay? I don't want to talk about it."

Onewa rolled his eyes. "You're not the only one with problems, you know!" he snapped. "We're all worried here!"

The Toa of Fire just kept his eyes trained on the floor and remained silent for the rest of the ride as the others traded theories about who was behind it all.

* * *

Whenua looked around. He didn't know this section of the city at all, having only been to Ta-Metru a couple of times. It looked mostly like abandoned factories. "What is this place?" he asked.

"This is where most of the Ta-Metru Morbuzakh attacks have occurred," Vakama explained. "Arisa told me that most of the workers and residents have been evacuated, except for the people working in the Great Furnace. Other than that, this whole section's been shut down. It seems like as good a place as any to start."

"The Great Furnace?" Onewa asked. "What's that?"

"It's just the local nickname. It's actually called Farshtey Fuels or something, but no one ever calls it that. It's basically a giant furnace that gives power to almost eighty percent of the city. Great Furnace just sounds better."

"So basically it's probably the biggest source of heat in Metru Uni," Nuju said. The others looked at him, and he shrugged. "If I were a plant that thrived on heat, where better a place to hide?"

Whenua nodded. "Especially if there are so many attacks around here. It's probably protecting its home territory."

"Uh, guys?" Everyone turned to look at Matau. He looked worried. "If this is the Morbuzakh's land-turf...does it already know we're here?"

Vakama squirmed uncomfortably. "Arisa once told me that if the Morbuzakh knows you're looking for it, it comes looking for you. This thing is probably smarter than your average city-destroying plant...so I'd say yes. It probably knows we're here already and is just waiting."

"Either to see if we're a threat or not or to spring for an ambush," Nokama added. "We should go check out this furnace thing then. But everyone, be on the lookout. There's no telling where the Morbuzakh could attack from."

Vakama switched to Toa form and readied his disk launcher, the others following suit with their own weapons. "Let's go," he said, pointing. "The Great Furnace is this way."

* * *

The streets were eerily quiet as they approached the gates of the Great Furnace. It was a tall brick building that looked like it had been standing for centuries with wrought iron gates built into a brick wall surrounding it.

Since they were in his home Metru, Vakama took the opportunity to play Tour Guide. "The Great Furnace is one of the oldest buildings in the city. For smelters and ironworkers all across Canada, this is considered the cream of the crop—the best place to work. Some say it was originally a prison that was gutted and turned into a power plant in the early 19th century, but it's never been confirmed."

Whenua looked around nervously. "Guys, if this really is where the Morbuzakh's King Root is, why was it so easy to get here? Shouldn't it be guarding its hideout?"

"It probably thinks the easiest way to eliminate us is to allow us onto its territory so it can spring a trap of some kind once we're inside," Nuju replied. "We must assume this thing is capable of intelligent thought and be extra vigilant."

Onewa pushed open the gate quietly, half expecting something from a horror film to jump out at him, and led the way towards the front door. Tools and personal belongings were strewn across the front lawn. "I thought you said this was the only place in the district that hadn't been abandoned," he called back to Vakama, who was acting as rear guard.

Vakama frowned. "I did. That's what Arisa had told me, anyway."

"Well, call me crazy, but this place looks pretty abandoned to me." He tried the doorknob. "Locked. Who locks the door to a smelting plant?"

"Power plant," Vakama corrected quietly.

"Most factory-plant doors are kept locked and only open with a key of some kind," Matau explained. "Sometimes it's a regular key, but oftentimes it's a card key or numbered punchcode, something easier and cheaper to duplicate. I had a summer work-job in a canning factory-plant once, and all the doors required a different punchcode. You had to resort to carrying a cheat sheet most of the time and it was so annoying—"

"Focus, please," Vakama said, pointing. Vines had started to grow up out of the ground behind them, but they weren't making any move to attack.

"They're blocking off our escape route," Nokama said. "Herding us inside."

"We've beaten these things before," Onewa replied, cracking his knuckles. "I say we take 'em."

"We're on their ground now, though," Nokama explained. "They might just re-spawn immediately after we beat them, or hell, even multiply faster than we can kill them. We're going to need to step into their trap, then either beat them at their own game or fight our way out."

"Or die," added Nuju. "There's always that option."

"Always the optimist, eh?" Whenua grumbled. "Vakama, the door's made of wood. Can't you just burn it down?"

Vakama nodded and summoned a fireball, quickly burning the door down. They stepped inside, looking around warily in case of an ambush. They seemed to be in some kind of short hallway with a couple of doors on each side and one large door at the other end.

The door to their immediate left led to a staff kitchen of some kind, with a fridge, table, and sink. The fridge had been left open and the sink was overflowing as water continued to pour into it from the tap. Chairs were strewn about with food and personal belongings left everywhere. Whoever had been in there last had left in a hurry.

A little down the way were a couple of bathroom doors. Onewa checked the men's room, but aside from some damage to the sinks and urinals, there was nothing to report. Nokama opened the door to the women's room and screamed, stumbling away from it. Vakama caught her by the arm and held her steady while the others looked to see what had scared her.

Lying twisted on the floor was the body of a young woman, probably in her thirties. She looked like she'd had her torso crushed and was splayed out on the floor, her head and limbs all at odd angles and a look of sheer terror and pain on her face. Nokama was crying into Vakama's shoulder. He was pale, but tried to put on a brave face. "It's...it's gonna be okay," he told her. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"What happened to her?" asked Whenua, looking sick.

"My best guess," Nuju said, gently closing the door, "is that the Morbuzakh attacked this place so their King Root could set up here. Most of the employees managed to escape, but she wasn't so lucky."

Nokama straightened and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "We've got to stop this thing from killing anyone else," she said quietly.

Vakama nodded. "And we will. We just have to find the King Root and destroy it, and then the trouble will be over. I'm sure of it."

"Right," Onewa said, opening the door at the end of the hall. "Let's go kill the shit out of it."

Nuju grimaced as he walked through the door. It was very hot in the next room. There was no obvious heat source, but the Great Furnace was a giant heat-powered energy source for most of the city, so it was a given that it was going to be warm. Vakama seemed to be the only one who wasn't affected by the heat.

The room they were in now seemed to be some kind of prep room before entering the furnace itself. Lab coats and heat-resistant suits were hung on hangers in the closets lining the walls, as well as scattered across the floor and few pieces of furniture. Either some people had been coming off-shift when the Morbuzakh attacked, or the fleeing employees had knocked over some of the clothes. Nuju picked up a heat-resistant suit that looked like it might fit him and started putting it on.

"What are you doing?" Whenua asked incredulously. "That doesn't belong to you!"

"No one seems to be using it," Nuju retorted. "Besides, if it's this hot in here, one can only imagine what it's like in the actual furnace."

"It's a good idea," Vakama piped up. "Better safe than sorry, right?" That said, he was the only one who didn't put one on, being the most resistant to heat anyway.

They looked at the door at the other end of the room. "Is everyone ready?" Vakama asked.

No one replied. Finally, Nokama, still visibly shaken over finding the body in the bathroom, spoke up. "No. I don't think we're ready." The others stared at her. Nokama was their voice of optimism and encouragement. If she didn't think they were ready, how could they be?

Then she drew in a shaky breath. "But we don't have a whole lot of options." She looked up at Vakama. "Let's go."


End file.
